


Learn To Fly

by evil_whimsey



Series: Blackbird [5]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_whimsey/pseuds/evil_whimsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Book Five of the Blackbird Series, sequel to Singing In the Dead of Night.</p>
<p>Together, Mori and Arai learn to find strength in devotion, and the courage it takes to follow an uncharted path to a new future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was the second week of February, when Arai finally admitted he was in trouble.  The sort of trouble brought on when you started with perfectly good intentions, and discovered as you went along, that they were leading to places you hadn't expected to go.  

Ever since that night he and Takashi had sat and talked up at the teahouse on the hill, Arai had spent a lot of time thinking.   Wanting to understand how he'd gotten from Point A:  paying more careful attention to his best friend, and showing he appreciated him, to Point B:  trying not to panic because he was falling for his best friend, hard.

Maybe it had really started with those gloves.  Arai had noticed how Takashi liked doing for himself;  sweeping the porch of the pool house doujo in the mornings, chopping firewood in the kitchen garden when the mood struck him.  The work gloves were a logical gift in that respect and for Arai, they were a perfect way to show that he considered Takashi, admired him in a friendly way, without imposing anything more.  They were well received, and at the time, Arai congratulated himself;  he decided he was on the right track, and should definitely keep paying attention.  And that, he thought later, was where things got complicated.

 

The night at the teahouse had been a real eye-opener for him.  Granted he hadn't been much good for the first part of it, with his dad's arguments still echoing in his head, but once he calmed down, he learned a lot.  There were some things he was still processing, like the news that Takashi was taking solid steps away from his family's long-held traditions, planning commitments that would keep him at the summer house indefinitely, and was willing for Arai to be a part of that.  But there were other unexpected things he learned, somehow without a word ever being spoken.

Arai had escaped to the teahouse needing someone to lean on, and Takashi had not only let him, he'd encouraged the closeness.  Takashi held his hand, talked Arai out of his misery, and kept a firm arm around his shoulders.  It was no exaggeration when he had admitted he'd needed that, but what became apparent to Arai as the night went on, was that Takashi needed it too.  He kept hold of Arai's hand the entire time, until it was late and the wind was freezing.  Then walking down the hill, he'd put his arm around Arai's shoulder, falling into step with him.  It was a surprise, discovering that Takashi liked to be touched.  And Arai had liked the comfortable, familiar thing between them, and he'd filed it away on his list of things to do more of, for Takashi.

In the days that followed, he tried putting a hand on Takashi's arm to say hi, and later leaned against his shoulder while they sat talking.  He was rewarded by seeing Takashi relax, and smile more.  And the more he smiled, the more Arai liked seeing that, to the point that he worried, just a tiny bit, that he might be getting a little selfish about this.  But on the day he happened on Takashi in his library, bent over the plans for that ancient irrigation system, frowning and rubbing at a headache between his eyes, Arai didn't waste time worrying, he stepped right in to do something about it.

"You should take a break," he'd said, "before you go blind."  
Takashi made a pained attempt at a smile, and Arai told him, "Look.  Here, let me--."  He put his fingertips to Takashi's temples, said, "Okay?  Rest your eyes for a minute."  
Takashi gave a feeble stir of resistance, but didn't move or make any real objection, and when Arai rested his thumbs on Takashi's forehead, he gave in and closed his eyes, tilting gratefully back in the chair.

Working from his own considerable experience with study headaches, Arai applied gentle, steady pressure to Takashi's temples, his forehead above his eyes, his cheekbones, and jaw.  He worked his fingertips into Takashi's thick black hair, rubbing slow circles into his scalp, from his hairline down to his neck.  All the while, a distant, possibly saner part of him was astounded he was getting away with this.  The rest of him was determined to do a thorough job, and enjoy it as long as he could.  For several minutes, Takashi lay still and quiescent under Arai's hands, and Arai--who had never taken such a close, intimate look at someone else before--was fascinated.  

"Better?" he'd asked when he was done, sitting back reluctantly.  

It was possible he was already in trouble by then, gone well out of the territory of friendly consideration he'd started from.  But when Takashi answered with a low, lazy sound in his throat, regarding him through eyes at sleepy half-mast....well, it was pretty painfully obvious then, that Arai's priorities were heading somewhere new.  And to be honest, at that particular moment, he wasn't much interested in turning back.

He thought about that a lot, later on.  Especially when, a few days later, he picked up the sanding kit on sale over at Masao Hardware.  Seeing it had reminded him of his mental list of things to do for Takashi (a list that curiously, kept growing longer), and how he'd once mentioned working on the floors of the teahouse, come spring.  It was another one of those useful, unassuming gifts, and he knew that whether Takashi needed the kit or not, he would like the idea of it; that Arai had remembered a little detail mentioned months ago, offhand.  And of course Arai would volunteer to assist with the sanding, but he couldn't help wondering if there weren't something better he could give.  Maybe not something strictly practical for once, but more....

_Maybe more than just friends_ , suggested a sly, reckless voice in him.  It was a voice he heard more and more often, since he'd crossed that nameless boundary and blundered into this peculiar Point B territory.  And it wasn't like the idea was any kind of a surprise by then, but still it baffled him a little.  Because what did you do with something like that?  He'd really only had one experience remotely similar; his desperate, sweaty-palmed, incredibly awkward attachment to Haruhi, back in middle school.  And every time he thought about the possibility of that situation repeating itself, Arai's common sense would kick in and veer immediately toward safer ground.  Work gloves, and a sanding kit, and practicing whatever new torturous exercise Takashi had for him that week.

But like a boomerang in flight, his thoughts always came back to where they'd started.  In the storeroom trying to count milk cartons, he'd blank out, grinning foolishly as he pictured that look Takashi got, right before he said something hysterical.  Or he'd be driving through town and miss his turn, because he was meditating on the feel of Takashi's hand on the small of his back, supporting him in a tricky new pose.  And what it came down to was inescapable:  at some point soon, Arai would have to choose between being safe or being honest with his friend.  And that really wasn't a choice at all;  because hadn't he already agreed to be honest with Takashi?  Safe or not, he'd be damned if he'd break his word.

Still, he was in trouble.  He felt he could count on Takashi to not be completely obtuse and misinterpreting, if Arai was honest about his feelings.  And if he wasn't interested (a definite possibility though not, Arai thought, a dead certainty), well Arai had gotten over that once, he could do it again.  They understood each other, and there was no reason they couldn't go on being friends.  What was keeping him awake on those February nights, and troubling his mind through the sleeting blustery days, was the question of How.  How should he explain to Takashi?  How was he supposed to start, with being honest?  How could he show his friend, that he meant more to Arai than gloves and sanding kits, shared jokes, and a shoulder to lean on?

How did they get to what might come next?

 

*  *

"....and I made forty orders for the bakery, but you know how disorganized they are," the woman was telling Arai's uncle.  "They only had room for half that.  So I'm offering the rest, at a discount."  
"I don't know," his uncle said, peering in the crate skeptically.  "Our stock is pretty full as it is."

Arai was trying to sort out the window display, while his uncle and the confectioner talked over at the register.    
"We still have space over here," he mentioned to his uncle.  "Since you wanted to put most of this stuff by the cooler, anyway."  He pushed a few boxes aside to fumble with the red cloth draped over the apple boxes, trying vainly to make something aesthetic out of it.  His uncle had been trying to teach him the art of a good window display, but Arai was afraid it was an art that was lost on him.

"I'm not sure the window is best," the woman said.  "These really shouldn't be in direct sun."  
"Ah," said Arai's uncle, sounding even more doubtful.  
"I suppose I could try next door at Masao's," sighed the woman.  "Though I might as well just give them away, at that point."

Arai withdrew from the window, and the battle he was losing between a stapler and a lot of pink crepe paper streamers.  He batted the streamers off his arms, and approached the register for a closer look.

"I'm just not sure these will move," his uncle was saying apologetically.  "They're not....quite as eye-catching, as our other stock."

The crate was stacked with a number of packages, modest parcels wrapped in crisp brown paper, and tied with twine.  Arai pulled one out for closer inspection, as the woman told his uncle, "It's not about the packaging, Arai-san.  It's about what's inside.  And I retired on that recipe, you know.  Sold it to a patisserie in Paris.  Very upscale place."  Adding, "Anyway, they packaged it just like this."

"Well, this isn't exactly Paris," his uncle chuckled.  "Though I'm sure they're very good."

"I'll take a box," Arai said.  "I think they're just right."  He'd gone for it on instinct, thinking maybe this was just the sort of thing he'd been looking for recently.  But he regretted his impulsiveness a little, when his uncle turned a high, inquiring eyebrow on him.

"The Morinozuka house ships their coffee from Vienna," he shrugged, grabbing at the closest straw to hand.  "They'd go for something like this, I bet."

The confectioner took up his uncle's questioning look.     
"And uh, Misuzu-san, over at the pension might like them too," Arai babbled.  "For his um, guests.  Or something."  Feeling more exposed by the second, he decided a temporary retreat was necessary.

"Let me grab my wallet.  Back in a minute," he muttered, hurrying off to the rear of the store.

"I like how your nephew thinks," Arai heard from the confectioner, on his way up the stairs.  
"Hm," his uncle answered thoughtfully.  "I guess I could put a few boxes out.  We'll see how they do."

 

*  * 

The box burned a hole in Arai's coat pocket all the way to the estate, and even when he shucked his coat in the pool house, it kept burning in his brain through the training session with Takashi.  He tried his best to act normal, but it was hard to function at all when his attention was torn between this latest gift--a radical departure from the previous ones--and Takashi himself.  The fine curve of his cheekbones, which Arai vividly recalled touching that day in the library, and the sharp straight fit of his kimono (which Arai had dwelt on more than once lately, on those nights he couldn't sleep and only kept wondering How).  These were the things he was noticing about Takashi now, and what he could only hope, was that his gift might show that.

"If you don't focus," Takashi reminded him patiently, catching Arai before he overbalanced for the third time, "you're going to hurt yourself."

"Ah, sorry," Arai cringed.  "I'm not really concentrating."  Looking down at Takashi's hand, lingering on his arm.  "Little distracted today," he added, with a short, unsteady laugh.

Takashi's hand slipped down to his elbow.  "Is something wrong?"  
Arai stared at that hand, helplessly.  Noticing the long fingers, neatly trimmed nails, and the tiny pale crescents at the cuticles.  And then something jumped out at him that he hadn't seen before.

"Oh hey...."  He lifted his arm and laid the fingers of his other hand alongside Takashi's.  "You have two busted fingers, just like me."  

They were on opposite hands;  Takashi's index and middle finger were slightly crooked from the middle joint, whereas Arai had broken his middle and ring fingers.  But what were the odds, anyway?

"Kendo," Takashi remarked, regarding his fingers.  
"Soccer," Arai nodded.  And somehow, he knew that it was time for the gift.  He'd been given his cue, and he had to act now, or he was going to lose his nerve.

"Listen," he began, lining his fingers up over Takashi's.  "Can I show you something, right now?"  
Takashi looked at their hands; alert, interested.  "Sure."

 

"It's fine if you don't have any, um, use for these," Arai said, coming back with the box.  He had to pause and wipe his damp hand on his sweatpants.  "But I wondered, well.  I didn't know if anybody would think of you today...."

Takashi's eyes widened a fraction, and Arai felt doubt ratcheting tight in his gut.  It had occurred to him, on his way to get the box, that maybe he should have given this part some forethought.  But ever since he'd bought the gift, he'd been afraid to think too much, lest he talk himself out of it somehow.  His only plan really, had been to give it to Takashi, and let things work out from there.  

Only now, with Takashi watching him, Arai felt his nerve deserting him after all.  He felt catastrophe closing in at his back, and with nowhere to go but forward, he took a deep breath and dove right in to the deep end, while he still had a chance.

"It's no problem if you don't like them, but I was thinking of you--I mean I do, think of you, a lot, and oh God--."  He stuck the box out like it might turn and bite him any second.  "Here.  Happy Valentine's."

 

Takashi didn't move, or blink, or even appear to breathe for approximately an eternity.  Arai waited, and tried to keep his arms from shaking, and managed to not hyperventilate by telling himself, _It's fine.  He's just surprised, that's all.  Really surprised.  God, he should probably breathe soon._   Then Takashi wavered on his feet, and Arai forgot to think, moving forward to catch Takashi's arm, realizing that  _oh shit_ , this had been a spectacularly bad idea.

No sooner had Arai touched him, than Takashi pulled in a great sudden rush of air, like a floundering swimmer yanked to the water's surface.  A thousand yammering apologies gridlocked in Arai's throat, all trying to get out at once.  _This never happened.  I take it back.  Please for the love of god just pretend I was never born.._   But Takashi rallied, and reached for Arai's shoulder.

"Is that--."  He paused for a slower, quieter breath.  "What I think?"

"Um."  Arai held up the box, the neat brown paper crinkling in his grip.  Even at arm's length, the heady bittersweet scent of pure chocolate was unmistakable.

Arai's mouth was dry, and he felt a hot stupid flush blazing in his cheeks.  Whatever crazy careless hope had pushed him here jarred loose, and dropped to the soles of his feet, and he looked down on what was left of it.  _Idiot,_  he told himself.

"m'sorry," he mumbled.  "I didn't mean to....it's no big deal.  I'll just."  He slumped and turned to go far, far away to find a big, heavy rock to hide under for the rest of his life.  But he failed to account for Takashi's hand on his shoulder, until it became an arm latching across his chest, gently but effectively collaring him.

"Don't go," said the voice just behind his ear.  "Please."  
And without quite knowing how, Arai was turned, facing a pair of intense, wide-set eyes, and a faint smile crooked with a hint of apology.

"I didn't expect that," Takashi said.  "It's been a long time since someone's....offered."

"Oh," said Arai, his spirits falling further.  "High school?"  But of course.  Being in that Host Club, he'd probably gotten chocolates left, right, and center on Valentine's.

"Hm."  Takashi gave a conditional half-nod.  "It was always awkward."

Arai's tight, despairing sound might have passed for a laugh on a better day.  "Nothing at all like this, then."   
But Takashi's look was kind.  "Not quite," he said.

And then slowly, in careful terms, he explained about these girls in high school.  Girls who took all their courage and their shy dreams, and wrapped them up in exquisite paper with perfect creases and meticulous bows.  He admitted that sometimes, he accepted the gifts to soften the blow of refusing the hearts behind them.  They were so fragile, and he never wanted to cause hurt, but he couldn't accept what didn't rightly belong to him.

"If I give my word, I keep it," he emphasized.  Giving and taking back was unthinkable.  Perhaps a lighter-hearted person could manage it, but not him.

And Arai, recalling what Sakura-san had told him about Morinozukas and their promises, nodded his understanding.

"I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that," he said.  "I really do apologize."  
Takashi had the same forbearing look he always wore before pointing out that Arai wasn't paying attention.

"Listen."  He leaned in, shifting his hand high on Arai's shoulder.  "I couldn't return the feelings of the girls in high school.  And after that last summer, I couldn't accept their gifts."

"Why not?" Arai asked, thinking that Takashi was making an effort to help him understand something, and it was worth trying anyway, for whatever peace the reasoning might give him.

"Because it would have been dishonest, and unfair.  I met someone I cared about, that summer."  
Arai was on the verge of asking Who--foolishly as it turned out--as Takashi's hand slipped up and tentatively brushed his cheek.  

Then it was Arai's turn to go breathless and wobbly.   _Does he mean that all this time--?  But that's....that's...._ His brain stumbled and fell over in the same instant his lungs ran out of oxygen.  He gasped, gave up trying to frame any kind of rational comment, and blurted, "What took you so long?"

Takashi shot him an amused glance that quickly turned serious.  
"Because you need to be certain."  He took Arai's hand, still clutching the forgotten box of chocolates.  His voice was threadbare in places;  almost a whisper.

"If I accept....your offer, I may not be able to let it go."

Arai's breath caught and snagged on the shade of fragility he heard, and Takashi's staggering earnestness; those eloquent eyes asking Arai to be sure, please be sure.  He understood this was no time for haste, or bravado, or reckless stunts.  This territory had consequences.  It was a place a person could do great good, or terrible harm, just by passing through.  

And yet Takashi had been waiting here for him, for how long?  And how long had Arai been trying to show what he felt; to explain to Takashi that he noticed, and he cared.  Maybe all along, all Arai had wanted was to belong.  Right here.

"It's yours," he finally said, reaching for Takashi's free hand.  "It was already yours."  Fitting his fingers between Takashi's, and stepping in close.  "I'm sure of it."

For a long wondering moment, Takashi simply looked down at him, as if wanting to make sure this was real, that he wasn't going to wake up.  And Arai felt something in himself rising to meet that look, an urge to prove that yes, he was right with him; only inches away, and moving closer.   And then like a switch had been thrown, he became powerfully conscious of Takashi's hands, and his shoulders, and his breathing.  It dawned on him that this place they'd reached held a wealth of tantalizing new mysteries, and Arai had all the time in the world to explore them, if Takashi would let him.

He drew in further, tugged by an invisible thread of anticipation.  And then unexpectedly, Takashi moved back.  He took the box, but released Arai's hands, and turned.  
"Right," he said.  "I think we're done working today."

Arai experienced an immediate flash of distress.  Without thinking he reached for Takashi's arm, tugging his sleeve to hold him back, pull him close again, make him stay.  
"Wait," he pleaded.  

Takashi suddenly turned a bold appraising look on him, a look with heat behind it, and Arai's last thought of any consequence, was that all bets were off, now.

"I want to kiss you," Takashi said.  Adding with gentle exasperation, "But not in the  _doujo_."

Arai practically fell over himself, trying to reach the door after that.  

 

*  * 

 

They had stopped just inside the rear courtyard wall, behind the residence wing.  Arai leaned against the green rustling cushion of the ivy, not quite trusting his legs by then.

"Are you cold?"  Takashi asked, cupping Arai's cheek, his lips brushing Arai's jaw, his neck, his earlobe.  "You're shaking."

Arai realized it was true;  he was trembling faintly all over, from shoulders to knees, under Takashi's hands.  But he didn't feel remotely cold.  And furthermore....

"So are you," he whispered, and pulled Takashi to him, bringing them firm, and certain, and  _real_  together.  He closed his eyes and angled up for another kiss, holding his breath when Takashi's lips ghosted over his, and sighing it out as their mouths met in soft, searching warmth.

 

*  *

 

A figure in a wide straw hat and a simple cotton smock strolled out from the opposite side of the house, far across the courtyard.  Paused for the briefest moment on the path, and then retreated the way he'd come, like a quaint bent character heading into the backdrop of an old woodcut print.

Neither of the young men hidden in the thick ivy that covered the courtyard wall noticed the intrusion.  It was too quick, and they were entirely caught up in each other, and their first cautious introduction into new territory.


	2. Chapter 2

When Arai returned to the estate, two days after Valentine's, Mori was stationed on the steps of the pool house with his broom, wondering whether it would rain.

It was a cold, murky day with dark clouds trailing shreds across the landscape, like a damp grey tent sinking heavily on its supports, seeming almost low enough to touch.  A day meant for hibernating indoors, burrowed in quilts and pillows, with a window cracked for drafts of air, earth-scented and dense as wet leaf mulch. 

Mori had awakened that morning with his brain and bones swaddled in deep lassitude;  a feeling that ordinarily he would shake off with strong coffee and a brisk walk to sharpen his senses.  But for two days previous, his blood had been racing, and his head dizzied by the memory of yielding lips and curious slender fingers sending prickles across his scalp and skin.  And while it wasn't unpleasant by any means, being so consumed, he reasoned that a person couldn't remain in such a state indefinitely.  They'd simply burn up, from the inside out.

It was his first experience being at the mercy of intimacy, and with the way another's touch could linger long after the fact; a curious departure from his lifelong adherence to moderation and self-control.  And while he didn't object to the departure on a limited basis, a certain cautious part of him advised that constant immersion in pleasure could in the end be just as much an obstacle as constant aloofness.  Mori thought what they should establish, he and Arai together, was a balance that would serve them in the long run.

Normally, he had the pool house open and lit, organized for work by the time Arai showed up.  But on this still grey morning, Mori left the lights off and the practice mats stacked in their cupboard, held off sweeping and all the usual preparations, feeling that today's lesson--the first since Valentine's--should be different than the others.  Seeing as their friendship had advanced to something deeper, perhaps it was time for their work here together to address something deeper as well.

What he had in mind was more about mental exercise than physical, and he felt he'd picked the right day for it when he saw Arai emerge through the gap in the high evergreen hedge surrounding the pool area.  The young man was moving with a slow, pensive air.  Hands in his pockets and chin up, taking in the peculiar misty stillness around him with wide, soft eyes.

Watching him approach, Mori had a quick recollection of that warm mouth hesitating over the sensitive skin of his neck, just behind his ear.  The tickle of lips, and a tasting flick of tongue.  Sense memory curled low and warm in him;  stretched lazily and then returned to its slumber.  Later, he suspected, that feeling would wake up hungry.  But for now....

"Quiet day, isn't it?" Arai remarked, pausing at the base of the steps.  "Everyone seems sleepy today.  Nobody came to the store at all."  He looked past Mori, to the pool house doors, open to dim emptiness.

"No lesson?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"A different lesson," Mori suggested.  He turned the broom in his hand, so the bristles brushed the porch.  "You haven't swept the doujo before."

Arai cocked his head curiously, looking from Mori to the broom, and back.  "This is a meditation thing, isn't it."

"You could call it that."

Turning his gaze up to the dark heavy sky, Arai said, "I could meditate today."

 

"So how does this work?" he asked, after mounting the steps, tugging off his coat, and accepting the broom from Mori.  
"I usually sweep from the far ends to the middle.  Just find a pattern you can repeat, and a rhythm.  Concentrate only on that."

For the first time, Arai smiled, crooked and endearing.  "Is everything you do more complicated than it looks?"

"We could start with seated meditation," Mori answered, returning the smile. "But with this weather, we'd both end up asleep, I think."  
"Hm.  Good point."

With that, Mori turned and descended the steps, giving Arai room to sweep.  
"Where are you going?"  Arai asked.

"Just over there."  Pointing to squat stone obelisk past the far end of the pool.  "So I don't distract you."  
Arai looked puzzled, uncomfortable suddenly.

"You won't meditate if I'm watching," Mori explained.  "And you tend to talk when you're bored," he added, with another slight smile.

"Sorry." Arai glanced away, his cheeks coloring.  "I didn't know that was a problem."  
"It isn't.  I like talking to you," Mori assured him.  "But in this case, its easier to work on your own."

Arai weighed the point, and seemed to judge it fair.  "When do I stop sweeping?"  he asked.  "I mean, the porch is pretty clean already."  
"Imagine your mind being swept as clean as the porch.  When you feel it is, and your thoughts aren't tempted to wander, then you're done."

 

Without sun or shadows, it was hard to know how much time had passed.  But Mori wasn't concerned with keeping track.  At some point, he became aware of Arai sitting next to him, crosslegged on the grass, and serenely still.

Seconds passed into minutes, with neither of them moving, and no sound but the occasional far-off chirp of a single bird, muffled by fog and mist.  From the edge of his vision, Mori could see the slow rise and fall of Arai's chest, in a natural counterpoint to his own breath.  He watched it for awhile, with no thought or reason beyond the pure contentment it brought him. 

Though he made no particular effort at recollection, he couldn't really remember ever feeling this warm reassurance, in previous meditations. It was so calm, comfortable, and Mori could not imagine wanting to be anywhere else in all the world, right now.

Some while later, his thoughts began to stir, and a nameless internal sense told him that this single, protracted moment was turning, changing shape, and leading to a different moment.  Mori sighed and twisted his torso to the left, then the right to loosen his lower back, then brought his hands flat to his knees.

"If you're ready," he told Arai, "we'll start the lesson."

The young man's attention surfaced incrementally from a deep distant place, while Mori waited, placid.  Eventually, he blinked slowly, arched his back in a long stretch, and then yawned.

"Pardon me," he murmured, covering his mouth.  "Must have been dozing off there."  
"Feel awake now?" Mori asked.

"I feel different."  He uncrossed his legs, and sat back on his hands.  "That was....really nice.  What comes next?"

"I'll show you."  Mori rose and brushed flecks of dry yellow grass off his hakama.  "In the doujo."

 

Arai eyed the length of finely honed steel emerging from the scabbard in Mori's hand.  
"Wow," he breathed.  "That's the real thing, isn't it."

"It was forged by a Kanekawa descendant," Mori told him.  "It's been in the family almost two hundred years."  
"A real samurai sword.  I've never seen one up close."

"Katana," Mori corrected.  "Samurai carried different styles of swords.  There is a wakizashi paired with this, but I left it in the vault."  He turned, presenting the sword hilt toward Arai.  "Here, take it."

Arai reached for the hilt, then hesitated.  "Are you sure?"  He glanced at his palm.  "Shouldn't I wash my hands or something?"  
"You won't hurt it.  But use both hands, and keep your fingers behind the hilt guard.  The blade is very sharp."

He supported the hilt guard, cautious of the blade edge, until Arai had a secure grip.  
"Heavy," Arai noted.

"I trained with practice swords for four years, before I held that," Mori said, moving around to adjust Arai's fingers.  "Like that," he explained, "is the basic grip."

He showed Arai how to angle his wrists and elbows, and guided him through a few slow-motion sweeps, to get the feel for the weight and balance.

"Sensei said that any weapon would turn on us, if we didn't respect it," he explained.  "And that if we didn't give it our full attention, we dishonored the weapon, and the doujo, and the swordsmen who carried it before us."

"That's a lot of responsibility," Arai concluded, turning the blade so it gleamed in the pale light filtering through the pool house windows.  "But I guess holding something like this, you can't afford to get distra--."

He broke off, and Mori could see in his eyes, the moment the connection was made.  
"Ah.  So that's the lesson," he smiled.  "That's what the meditation was about."

"That's part of it," Mori nodded.  He reached for the sword hilt.  "Here, I'll show you something else."

He crossed to the center of the floor with his katana, and stood straight and centered.  "When I was fourteen, I grew almost six centimeters in seven months.  My proportions seemed different every week.  I wasn't making progress in lessons, and Sensei said I looked at my feet too much.  So he put this sword in my hand."

"How was that supposed to help?" Arai asked.  
"Well, I quit worrying about my feet," Mori smiled.

He stepped backward a few paces, and turned the sword in the same slow arcs he'd shown Arai;  moving through the basic positions he'd first learned.  Then he checked his hip with his left hand, and with the right, angled the blade to return to an imaginary scabbard at his side, hands moving with the mechanical accuracy of deep muscle memory, and eyes fixed forward.

"If you think about falling," he said, "you'll fall.  If you lose track of your body's position on this line, then you lose balance.  Keep your mind open and empty.  Focus only where you are now, and your next move."

He brought his feet together, side by side then.  Closed his eyes and emptied his mind of everything but the sensation of wood under the soles of his feet, and the feel of the sword hilt in his right palm.  He felt his balance distributed on the balls and heels of his feet; the geometry of his shoulders, hips and spine, and pictured himself on a single straight axis before and behind him.  When he could feel that axis as an extension of his own center, felt sure of his shoulders and hips perpendicular to it, he took a breath and moved.

In one step, he swept the blade up and overhead with both hands, eyes snapping open.  Planted his front foot and sliced downward, flexing his wrists to curve the motion as the sword sang through the air, crossing his body with one arm, and pivoting on the balls of his feet, following the momentum of the sword as he turned.  Now facing opposite, he rotated his right arm over the left to reverse the blade edge, slicing back across horizontally.  In the next breath, he reversed the blade again, took two swift steps forward, cutting the air on an upward diagonal.  At the apex of the cut, with both arms extended overhead, he shifted back a step, bent his wrists to turn the blade in a flat circle overhead, turned his hips and feet, then swept his arms down and around, following the turn of his torso.  He checked his elbows and wrists at the last instant, halting the blade edge only a hairsbreadth from the floor.

For a few seconds, he held the pose, feeling his heart pump, feeling the heat of friction under the soles of his feet, and the solid line of his forearms, down his wrists to his fingers, gripping the rough braid on the sword hilt.

 

After he'd ended the pose, he returned to a formal posture and offered a deep bow, before crossing to return his katana to its scabbard on the shelf. Only then, did Mori turn and face Arai's solemn, speechless look.

"After today, your exercises will be more challenging.  But if you come here with a clear mind, and concentrate on your goals, there isn't anything you can't accomplish.  You see?"

After a long moment, Arai nodded slowly.  "I think so.  But...."  He looked over at the shelved katana and then toward the doors leading out, with an expression not unlike the one he'd had when Mori had left him on the porch.  Like he had questions he wasn't sure if he was permitted to ask, or even how to phrase, perhaps.

"It's okay, go ahead." Mori prompted.

"When you say  _here_ , you mean the doujo, right?"  He turned his gaze to the floor, and rubbed at the back of his head in an unconscious awkward gesture.  "If we're out--," waving his hand vaguely toward the outside, "--somewhere else, would it be okay to, um.  I dunno, maybe...."

Watching the color rise in the young man's cheeks, Mori didn't know whether to feel sympathetic or simply captivated.  If he knew what Arai was trying to ask, he'd provide whatever answer would ease that anxiety the quickest.  As it was, he could only wait for Arai to work the question out himself, and reflected, not for the first time, that even distressed the young man was remarkably attractive.

And in the act of tucking that thought away for later consideration, Mori understood the point Arai was laboring to express.  He couldn't help smiling a little, as he said, "Of course it's okay."

"....to be distracted?" Arai finally finished, hastening to add, "Not that I mind working hard in here.  I'm fine with that and, y'know, whatever you want me to do, I really will try my best.  But it's--."  He broke off and Mori could see that distress cresting into something very like desperation.  "I'm sorry.  I thought I had a better handle on it this morning."  

Mori took in the flushed cheeks and nervously averted gaze, put two and two together, and realized he apparently hadn't been the only one in danger of being consumed.  He'd suspected this might be the case, but having it confirmed right in front of him....

"You look really good right now," Arai murmured.  "And maybe I'm....well, it's pretty hard to ignore."

The tone of the confession washed over Mori with an unexpected heat.  His first impulse was to reach for his companion, draw him in close and surrender to him.  They should do that, he thought.  Soon.  As soon as he cleared up one final point.

"Would it help, if I said it's hard to ignore you too?"  he asked, catching a startled look from Arai.  "That all I've thought about, is how soon you would come back, so I could see you again?"

"Really?"

"Really.  But I don't want you to give up the progress you've made here.  I don't want to leave the work we've started unfinished."  
"Me either," said Arai hurriedly.  "I want to keep working too."

"Then why don't we make a compromise?  In the doujo, we'll both agree to stay focused.  We'll save our--," pausing to smile at the term Arai had used earlier, "--distractions, for outside."

Arai's shoulders dropped and he heaved a sigh of relief.  "That works.  Yeah."

"Good," Mori nodded, taking a careful step closer.  "So where would you like to go?"

Arai blinked. "You mean. Now?"

"We've been productive enough for today," Mori said.  "I'll start showing you the new techniques tomorrow."  
He could feel Arai's eyes on him, traveling slowly upward to meet his gaze, lingering here and there.  And oh, this was definitely not the place for eyes like that, Mori thought, but he wasn't about to bring it up now.

"Um.  Well in that case.  Anywhere is fine, with me," Arai finally said.  Sounding a little shy, a little breathless, a little at the edge of his control.

 And this time it was Mori's turn to go rushing off for the door, with Arai keeping pace close behind by silent, but nonetheless emphatic agreement.

 

*  *

 

Sakura was in the kitchen, finishing preparations for lunch, and for the tenth day in a row, doing her best to crack the mystery of old Hito's recent smugness.  She'd tried every subtle trick she knew, and still the troublesome gardener remained tight-lipped, refusing to give any hint to his secret, other than that he had one.  He was seeking to aggravate her, she knew, lingering about with his mysterious chuckling, and twinkling looks, but all her veiled leading inquiries failed time and again to prompt him to share.  She would mention how the orchard out back was weathering well this winter, and he would nod sagely.  She would ask if he'd seen Bocchama that morning, and he would twinkle at her.

"I think he was checking for weeds out behind his doujo," Hito had told her one morning, which was simply ridiculous.  Even she knew there could hardly be any weeds worth bothering over, at this time of year.

Another time, he mentioned in passing that Bocchama was showing his friend the hayloft, out in the stables.  "Good thing I had that ladder fixed last summer," he said.  
"The hayloft?" she commented.  "But there's nothing up there."

There was definitely something evil about the man's chuckle, she decided.  

"Maybe Arai-san's never seen one before," Hito suggested, much too innocently.  "He was raised in the city, after all."

 

On the afternoon he came in to watch her make lunch, Hito said, "Well.  I wouldn't be surprised if they showed up late again, Bocchama and his friend."

Sakura put down her knife and was right on the verge of demanding to hear what Hito thought he knew.  Granted, the two young men had been appearing out of nowhere with some frequency lately, coming from side doors and far hallways with the glow and disorder of healthy exercise about them.  And Bocchama had been bringing his friend in late to meals, but she assumed they'd tarried over some project, or Arai-san's lessons in the pool house.  To Sakura's eye, the pair only looked like mischief in good company together, the way spirited young men should.  And yet Hito would persist in being smug.

She had to remind herself it was the man's chief delight to tease and vex her, and if she asked him outright, it would mean he had won this undeclared contest.  Which would only make him insufferable.  So instead, she busied herself with the serving dishes, and called for Kuki-chan.

"Please inform Bocchama that lunch will be ready in the dining room soon," she instructed.  "I expect he and his guest are still in the library."

Hito seemed to find particular amusement in this, and he told the girl in passing, "Don't be surprised if you interrupt them."

Kuki-chan gave him an uncertain nod and a wide berth, on her way out.

"Don't tease the maid," Sakura warned him.  "She's flighty enough as it is."  
Hito shrugged, unrepentant.  "It was only fair warning."

"You are a troublesome man," she answered.  "I'm of a mind to send you back to your gardening shed with your lunch."  
"What, and cheat yourself of the pleasure of my company?" he asked, pretending dismay.  "Surely Sakura-san wouldn't turn out this humble person, who only wishes to help while away the tedium of her duties."

She had a pointed response ready for him, but was forced to drop it when Kuki-chan pushed into the kitchen hastily, on the last steps of an apparently desperate retreat.  Having seen too many of them over the years, Sakura had little patience with the dramatic entrances of maids.

"Good heavens, child, this isn't a public playground.  What are you doing, dashing about like that?"  She was deliberately ignoring Hito, who was near to bursting with unspent humor and prankish secrets.

"Well?" Sakura told the girl.  "Out with it.  Unless the library is on fire, or someone is bleeding, there's no reason for such behavior."

Kuki-chan wrung her apron in her hands.  "Takashi-sama....and Arai-sama....in the library, they were--."  She broke off abruptly, blushing beet red from hairline to neck.

Sakura stared at the girl, as Hito finally broke into peals of delighted laughter.    
"Ah, so the match is discovered at last.  And am I mistaken, or is our little Twig Tea maid in favor of it?"

All at once, Sakura understood the gardener's smug secret.  And perhaps because she'd been too long in the dark, and felt she certainly ought to have perceived such a development before the others, she was less than amused.

"Hush," she told Hito.  And turning on Kuki-chan, she said, "Well I seriously hope you didn't disturb them."

To her astonishment, the girl blushed even brighter.    
"I--I closed the door behind me," was all she could manage.

"Next time, you'll think before you open a door."  Sakura shook her head, as the only rational person in a house gone mad.  "At any rate, we can only wait until they come for lunch on their own."  
"I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you," Hito cackled.  

And infuriatingly enough, he was right again.  An hour passed, and there was still no sign of the young men.  In the end, Sakura decided to prepare a tray, and leave it at the library door.

She returned from the delivery blushing faintly herself.  
"Door still closed?" Hito asked.

"Perhaps someone should mention to Bocchama," she said carefully, "that the library walls are thinner than they seem."

 

*  *

 

"No wait, hang on," Arai insisted.  "I--ah!--I'll get it."

Sweat stood out in beads on his forehead, and he gritted his teeth, squatting down slowly on one leg.  He held the other leg out in front, keeping his arms parallel to it.  His hands were balled into fists with the effort, and he breathed in short, tight bursts.

Mori stood behind him, frowning but ready to catch him again if necessary.  "Shoulders," he reminded.

This was the hardest balancing exercise Arai had tackled so far, and Mori had believed him ready, but for some reason, Arai was having uncommon trouble with it today.  The goal was for him to sink to a full knee bend on his recovering leg alone, and then raise up again.  But midway into the bend, either coming up or going down, his leg repeatedly gave out on him.  

Now fatigue was coming into play, and at some point soon, the exercise was bound to bring on a bad cramp.  Mori wanted to stop him before then, and had even suggested a break earlier.  But Arai was, for some reason moreso than usual, determined to push as far as he could.

"Whew," he breathed, resting in the full bend position.  "Made it down."  
"You're doing well," Mori told him.  "I'll spot you coming up."

"Alright," Arai said, tensing in readiness.  "Fifteenth time's the charm, right?  I'm gonna do it this time.  One, two--"  
"Don't bounce," Mori warned him.  "Straight lift up."

"Three-yaaaghh!" His shoulders were off square and his extended leg was bending, but Mori chose to save the niceties of form for later.  He understood Arai's need to get through this exercise once; to prove to himself that he was capable, and Mori all but held his breath for Arai, as his standing leg reached that chancy mid-extension again.

"Good," Mori told him.  "Keep going.  Push through."  
Arai's shoulders hunched, shifted.  He made another inch, then two, caught a short gasping breath, pushed a fraction further, and then his knee popped with a crack like a distant rifle shot.  Mori caught him under the elbows as Arai tilted sideways, took his weight and held him up.

"That's enough," he stated, over Arai's furious breathless noises.  Arai struggled, but Mori's hold was firm.    
"No," he said.  "You're going to do damage."

"But I can--."  
"You can try later.  Not today."  
"But it's just--"  
"Listen," Mori interrupted again, holding Arai still.

Arai sighed.  "Takashi...."  
"Shh.  Do you hear the wind outside?"  
"What?"  No longer struggling, Arai straightened his legs.  "I can stand.  I'm good."

Mori loosened his hold, though still keeping him close to murmur over his shoulder. "The wind's shifting."

"Um.  Okay?" Arai said, craning his head around, giving Mori a doubtful look.  
"Was your knee stiff this morning?" Mori asked.

"A little.  Maybe," Arai admitted, eyes darting off to one side.  
"Did it hurt last night?"  
Another short sigh.  "Kinda."

"It isn't you," Mori told him.  "It's the weather.  It's changing again."

Arai's entire bearing shifted, as comprehension dawned.  "Oh.  You mean...."  
Mori stepped aside, bringing one arm to curl around Arai's back.  "Come to the porch with me."

 

*  *

 

It was blustery out, with high, scudding clouds revealing shreds of soft blue sky.  The air was dry and fresh, warmer than it had been in months.  Mori stepped down to the stone path, trailing his hand down the porch rail, and breathing in a new scent.  Like a far-off memory of sun-warmed grass; a quick teasing grace note on the breeze, there and then gone.  Arai shuffled as far as the steps, and sat on the railing post.

"It happened last year, only I forgot," he told Mori.  "My knee acted up in spring weather too."  
"It will probably stop, given time," Mori said.  "But you should let it rest, if you're feeling the weather."

"That sucks," Arai said, and Mori chuckled a little.  
"You stood up today, after your knee popped," he pointed out.  "If you hadn't been balancing on one leg, you wouldn't have fallen at all."

Arai slouched and swung his legs, thumping on the wooden railing with his heels.  "Yeah.  But it still sucks.  I want to be able to do this stuff.  I  should be able to do it."

"Five months ago," Mori reminded him, "your knee gave out when you walked.  And you couldn't stand right after."  He approached the railing and put a hand on Arai's leg, looking up at him.  "You will get better than this."

"Yeah."  Arai gave the railing one last thump, and looked at Mori.  "You're right," reaching for Mori's hand.  
    
The breeze kicked up again, ruffling Arai's hair and he blinked, sniffed the air.  "Hm.  Smells like spring.  Nice to be warm for a change."  
Mori followed the direction of his gaze, toward the evergreen hedge surrounding the pool, rustling in the gusts of wind.

"I wonder," he said, and frowned.  
"What?"

"Something in the almanacs I read.  About false spring.  When the wind comes from the south."  
"False spring?" Arai asked.

"Warm weather for a week or more," Mori described.  "Things start to grow too early, and then the freezes come again."  
"That doesn't sound good."

"No," Mori shook his head and stepped back.  "I want to ask Hito about it.  Feel up for a walk?"  
Arai pushed himself off his seat, and bent both knees experimentally.  "Sure," he said, and headed down the steps.

"See?" Mori told him.  "Better already."

They were rounding the courtyard wall toward the delivery drive, when Arai apparently decided he wanted the last word, after all.  
"I'll get that exercise," he said  
"I know."

"And I'll do it right.  Shoulders straight, and everything."  
"Yes."  
"You just wait and see."

"Okay," Mori said, grinning back at Arai as they stepped onto the gravel drive.  Then he glanced toward the house, and froze so suddenly that Arai collided into his back.

"Hey, what's--"Arai began, and then he saw the car too.  A sleek black limousine, parked in front of the grocery truck, with a uniformed driver removing luggage from the trunk.  
Mori didn't recognize the driver, but he knew the car all too well.

"Did you know you were getting visitors today?" Arai asked.  Mori shook his head, realizing he'd gone numb.  
"Huh.  I wonder who it is."

Up at the porch, Mori spotted Sakura-san, looking stern and self-contained in her neat house dress and fresh white apron.  She looked, he thought, like she'd been prepared for this.  And perhaps he should have been prepared too;  it was bound to happen eventually, after all.  He realized she was waiting for him, and that he should probably do something.

When he reached the steps she bowed, and if nothing else, that reversion to the formal manners of the Tokyo house confirmed who was in residence here, now.

 

*  *

From the moment Takashi saw the limousine in his driveway, he became completely different.  When Arai bumped into him, he hit a back as rigid as stone, and Takashi didn't even seem to notice.  It didn't take much for Arai to see that whoever was here, it wasn't a pleasant surprise for Takashi at all.  

Or for Sakura-san, it seemed.  When he first saw her on the steps, she looked like a stranger to Arai, and there was none of her usual fond scolding when they approached; waving them in for lunch, lecturing on how the soup would be cold if they didn't hurry.  She bowed low and precisely to Takashi, like Arai had imagined servants in mansions would bow (until he had met her, that is).  That was unsettling enough, but then she spoke, as though she and Takashi were both strangers even to each other.

"I was sent to inform Bocchama that Morinozuka-sama has arrived in the house, and will receive Bocchama in the Master's study, at Bocchama's earliest convenience."

Arai stared, from Sakura-san to Takashi, who stood rigid, arms straight at his sides and shoulders stiff.

"Understood," he finally said, tipping his head a notch forward at her.  "Thank you, Sakura-san."  
It was only as he began to mount the steps, that Arai realized neither of them had included him at all.

"Oh," he said aloud, without meaning to.  It just slipped out, as he understood that it was Takashi's dad, here to see him.  As he remembered that Takashi had a different home somewhere else, and a family that--as Takashi had put it--didn't know what he was for, anymore.  And Arai might have thought Takashi's dad coming out here to talk to him after all this time, was a good thing.  But he got the feeling, just from Sakura-san's and Takashi's expressions, that this visit probably wasn't that good, for some reason.

And then he realized Takashi had paused on the steps, and he and Sakura-san were both looking at him.  
"Oh," he repeated.  "I guess um."  He stalled on that, finding he had no idea what to say, actually.

"Please accept my apologies." said Takashi, in that same grave, unfamiliar voice he'd used with Sakura-san.  "But I have....obligations--."  Then for the first time ever, he bowed to Arai, low and stiffly formal. When he straightened, he was looking toward Arai, but not quite meeting his eyes and Arai was now deeply unsettled.  Maybe even a little frightened.

"That's.  That's okay," he stammered, uncertain how to talk to this person he didn't exactly recognize.  It was an awful feeling.  "It's your dad," he managed to go on.  "You should--I mean, I don't want to be in the way, or anything."

He shrank back a step, patting his coat pocket for his keys, and for just a second Takashi did meet his eyes.  Something Arai almost recognized flickered there like a signal light, a code too fast for Arai to catch, before flat darkness shuttered it.  Then with nothing but a nod, Takashi turned and entered the house, leaving Arai to stare after him, feeling like he'd been sliced off at the knees with a blade so quick and sharp that his legs didn't feel the pain yet.

"Okay.  Um, bye.  I guess," Arai offered, in a voice too weak to carry.  For a second, he couldn't move, and he couldn't piece together what had just happened.  

When Sakura-san moved on the step, he could only look at her, lost, until she sighed and shook her head sadly.

"Oh, child," she said.  "I'm afraid the time has come for Bocchama's unfinished business to be faced.  There will be difficulties here, and I'm sorry that neither of you had opportunity to prepare yourselves.  But perhaps," she considered, "it's better over sooner than later."

"What can--" Arai had to stop and clear his throat.  "What can I do?  Takashi, just now.  He looked...." he trailed off, having no words for that look, but picturing funeral flowers.  Prison cells.  A small boat sinking in a stormy ocean, all hands down.  

Sakura-san glanced quickly through the open doorway into the house, then descended the steps toward Arai.    
"I'm sorry I don't have longer to talk," she told him.  "But I can tell you this:  Bocchama and his father will need time to adjust.  We should give them that time.  A day or two, perhaps.  After that, Bocchama will very likely appreciate the company of a friend.  I think you should return then."

"But what should I do?" Arai asked.  "What does he need?"

Sakura-san thought about it for a moment, and then frowned.  "I have never known a Morinozuka who was able to answer that question.  Of what they alone need.  It isn't something they are raised to ask themselves."  She paused, and gave him a serious look.  "Hopefully when the time comes, you will know what Bocchama needs.  Maybe he will have taught you by now, to understand.  Hm?"

While Arai turned that over in his head, Sakura-san straightened her apron briskly, and glanced behind her.  "I must go now.  But think about what I've told you, and remember what I said before."

Arai tilted his head at her, curiously.

"If Morinozuka Takashi has made a promise," she elaborated, "do not fear he will forget it.  Not even over something like this.  He was only shocked temporarily; I'm sure he will overcome that before the day is over.  Understood?"

Knowing he could only hope she was right, Arai allowed himself a small, cautious nod.  "I'll keep it in mind.  Thank you, Sakura-san."

"We'll see you again soon," she said, and mounted the steps to the door.

 

*  *  *  *  *


	3. Chapter 3

It had taken Bocchama a long while to fully emerge from his fortress of silence, but his remission to it, Sakura noted, was the work of moments.  It was not a change to be marked in steps or gestures;  Bocchama was too careful for that.  Sakura saw it in his eyes though, and in the summoning of fortitude that stiffened his spine, when she announced his father's arrival to the summer estate.

And it was hard to say which she regretted more.  Seeing him reverting to his former guarded stoicism and understanding the necessity of it, or seeing the effect of his sudden change in temperament on his innocent, unwary companion.  For of course Arai-kun couldn't know about the master Morinozuka-sama, and the impact of that man's forceful presence; as different from his sons' as could possibly be imagined.  Nor could Arai know what Sakura always had: that being the eldest, Bocchama had taken the unblunted edge of his father's exactitude all his life and borne it faultlessly, as was expected of him, developing an untouchable resilience that monks and warriors alike fasted and prayed for.  Sakura had recognized that tempered forbearance when it returned, but young Arai could not.  For he had likely never seen it, nor ever witnessed firsthand the circumstances that had forged it.

Sakura herself had not appreciated how different Bocchama had become in his time at the summer house, until she saw his retreat, reflected in the bewildered gaze of the boy who so purely and unreservedly loved him.  Arai didn't understand that Bocchama was entering his house as a Morinozuka son, stiffened in the mantle his father had fitted him to, as all Morinozuka sons had been fitted for generations:  with hammer and fire to harden their steel, and unyielding discipline to grind them to a single keen purpose.

He couldn't have known that this was who Bocchama had always been, until unique circumstances had altered him.  Or that the person Arai had formed his attachment to was someone only he had likely ever seen;  someone Bocchama himself was perhaps not entirely familiar with yet.  

Regrettably, there was no time for Sakura to properly explain all this.  The duties of the house had abruptly multiplied, and she must somehow manage them with no help but a skittish, barely-trained girl who might not last the day if she weren't watched carefully.  She was pulled two directions at once;  with her responsibilities to the house and its occupants demanding her attention on the one side, and the boy at the bottom of the steps, confused and shaken as a fallen nestling, tugging at her conscience on the other.

Descending the steps, Sakura was aware she skirted dangerously near the edge of her loyalty to the family, and its current master.  But Arai-kun proved himself worth the risk, being that his sole concern was for Bocchama's well-being.  He asked nothing for his own peace of mind, but to help his friend.  And whatever the consequences in the end, she could not fault him for that, or discourage his motives.

Some time later, as she reflected on that afternoon's events, Sakura would wonder if it wasn't just as well that Arai hadn't known all the specifics of Bocchama's previous history, and how others had perceived him before.  After all, the person Arai knew and loved was someone different;  the man whom Morinozuka Takashi had been on his way to becoming, in a sense.  And if Arai could keep his sights fixed upon that person, and remain his advocate, who was to say it might not prove a greater benefit to the young heir than anything the rest of them could do?

Sakura had told Arai that Bocchama would need a friend. But what if, she wondered later, what he truly needed was allies?  

Interestingly, when she put the question to Hito, he agreed without hesitation.

 

*  *

 

Morinozuka-sama strode all over the house that first afternoon, inspecting and critiquing every detail to catch his eye in terse, blunt statements.  The hall floor creaked.  The library had a draft.  He'd never cared for that dining table.  

Thanks to Sakura's vigilance, and her rigorous routine with Kuki-chan, the house was spotlessly clean.  The only faults the master found were simply those inherent in the structure and character of a very old house.  The main part of the summer house had stood nearly a century and a half, and had seen no major renovation since the installation of electricity, forty years ago (the year Ichigo-sama's wife had petitioned for the telephone service).  There was nothing to be done about its creaks and drafts, and the dining table was a priceless family heirloom.  But Sakura conveyed her sincere apologies for all these things to the master nonetheless, as was proper for the house's keeper.

Following his initial tour, Morinozuka's objections centered on his private suite in the residence wing, and it was there that he mainly kept Sakura and the maid busy the rest of the day, as they attempted to ensure his comfort.

Meanwhile, Sakura noted, his son seemed to be doing his best to disappear without actually going anywhere.  Initially, Bocchama attended his father's wandering inspection, keeping always a step behind, with an expression that could have been carved into a tree.  But after ten minutes or so, perhaps seeing his presence wasn't necessarily required, he retired to his rooms.  Until his father reached the residence wing, with commentary on the tatami, the view of the central courtyard, the low ceilings, and what he claimed was a "damp smell" in the closets.  After months of silence in that wing, the place was a veritable uproar with Morinozuka-sama's settling-in, and Sakura thought it little wonder when Bocchama discreetly fled his room for the library, where he remained shut away until dinner.

Morinozuka-sama's mood was not improved over dinner.  Though Sakura had made precisely the meal he'd requested, it failed to suit him.  The rice was too bland and cold; the fish was too salty; his tea was bitter, and had it always been this dark in the dining room?  When his father was occupied with some fault in his dining chair, Bocchama caught Sakura's eye, offering an expression of strained apology.  Yet Sakura felt she should be the one apologizing;  after all, she could retreat to the kitchen, whereas Bocchama--having experienced quite enough difficulty that day already, in her view--was obliged to stay put until the meal was over.

Some time after dinner, Bocchama entered the kitchen, where she was drying the last of the dishes.  He asked whether she knew where a headache remedy might be found.

Putting the dishtowel aside, Sakura asked, "Oh, is Morinozuka-sama feeling unwell?"  
"No," said the young man.  "It's for me."

Sakura made a sympathetic noise.  "If Bocchama doesn't mind waiting briefly, I will prepare the soothing tea he likes.  Would he like me to bring it to the library when it's--"

"Sakura-san!"  Kuki-chan bustled through the kitchen door and halted on seeing the young master.  "Ah, I'm very sorry," she bowed.  "I didn't mean to interrupt Bocchama and Sakura-san's discussion."

The young man shrugged it off, and Sakura asked, "Yes?  What is it?"

"Oh!" The girl chirped.  "Morinozuka-sama asked me to fetch the kitchen matches.  He wishes to light the library fireplace."

Peripherally, Sakura caught Bocchama closing his eyes, as if praying for strength.

"Did you show him the fireplace matches?" she asked Kuki-chan.  
"Yes, Sakura-san.  But, sorry to say, Morinozuka-sama wanted the matches from the kitchen specifically.  He says the fireplace matches break too easily.  Terribly sorry," she added, with another quick bow.

"Then by all means, take the kitchen matches to the Master, and be quick about it," said Sakura.  She turned back to the young man, now pinching the bridge of nose between thumb and forefinger.

"I'm certain we could accommodate Bocchama in the kitchen, for his tea," she suggested.

"I wouldn't want to be in the way," he told her, straightening himself, the tired lines in his expression slipping into blankness once again.  "I know you're busy."

"Then there are surely other quiet places we can find for--"

She was interrupted a second time, by Hito, entering from the pantry with a large flashlight.  
"It's warm out tonight," he mentioned.  "And the air's fresh.  Good night for a walk, to clear one's head."

Bocchama blinked in surprise at the man's sudden appearance, but spared the flashlight a longing look.  And for the first time she could recall, Sakura was grateful for Hito's uncanny sense of timing.

"My goodness, yes," she hastily agreed.  "A quiet evening walk could do Bocchama a world of good.  And we can certainly look after Morinozuka-sama's needs well enough.  Bocchama needn't worry about that."  
"Good view of the stars tonight, up on the hill," Hito put in.

"Hm," the young man finally gave in, and crossed to take the flashlight from Hito.  "I'll bring this back later."  
"No hurry," the old gardener told him.  "It has fresh batteries, ought to last all night if you need it."

"Thanks," Bocchama nodded, and passed out the way Hito had come.

Sakura waited until she heard the pantry door close, and was certain Bocchama was down the steps and on his way.

"You took the spare futon up there?" she asked, meaning to the tea house on the hilltop, where they had both guessed Bocchama would likely retreat sooner or later.  
"And a few extra blankets," Hito told her.  "Left him a book about tree pruning, in case he has trouble sleeping later."

"Good," she nodded.  "He and his father could both use a quiet night's rest."  
"Hm," said Hito, sounding skeptical.  "Did you make the phone call, just in case?"  
"I left a message.  But I've been assured it will be delivered as soon as possible."

Hito shook his head, and sighed, casting a worried eye toward the pantry door. "I hope that's true."

 

*  * 

 

Arai stood pressed to his bedroom wall in a sitting pose.  Knees bent and trembling, fingertips white and digging against the plaster.  
"Four ninety four, four....ninety five, four ninety....six...," he counted to himself, as trickles of sweat rolled down his sides.

It didn't seem smart to do the last exercise he'd learned without someone to spot him, so he'd been working on the second hardest one; sitting against the wall without a chair for as long as he could stand it.  Yesterday, he'd made it to a count of four hundred.  Today, he was going past five hundred, or until his legs gave out and he slid down the wall.

"Four ninety eight, four--four ninety....nine, five hundred....five hundred one.....five hundred....two--."  His back slipped an inch, and he creased his eyes shut, and dug in harder.  "Five....hundred three--," he gasped.

"Everything all right in here?" his uncle asked, leaning in the doorway curiously.

Arai's slipped down another two inches.  "Fine," he grunted.  His legs had gone past burning into dull numbness.  He wasn't even sure what was holding him up anymore.  
"Five hundred...five," he counted, felt himself sliding further, and he knew he was done.  Let himself slip the rest of the way to the floor, using his hands to shove his heels forward, so he could straighten his legs.

"You know," his uncle mentioned.  "Somehow I pictured these exercises differently."  
Arai didn't comment, he was too busy breathing.

"Huh," said his uncle, glancing around the room.  "You still have those boxes in here?"

Arai glanced at the shipping boxes, shoved as far as he could get them into the corner of the room, still full of all the stuff his mom had sent weeks ago.  Books and soccer trophies, and whatever had been left in the room he'd grown up in.

"Yeah," he said.

"Aren't they in your way?"  
"A little," Arai agreed.  "Just uh, not much time to deal with them."

His uncle looked at him over the tops of his glasses.  "Yes.  I can see where you'd be busy, what with being cooped up in here the last two days," he joked.

Arai leaned his head back against the wall, rubbing absently at his thighs.  "I don't know what to do with it all," he finally admitted.  "It's still kinda hard, I guess."

"Harder than that exercise you were just doing?" his uncle asked, and Arai blinked.  He hadn't thought about it like that.  But then his uncle changed the subject again.

"Your friend still up at his summer place?" he asked.  "I haven't seen you racing to get over there lately."

"His dad came to visit.  So I'm um.  Staying out of the way for now."  
"Oh, so you two didn't break up then."

"Of course not," Arai said without thinking.  Then his words slapped back to him on instant replay, and he jerked his chin up, startled.  "Wait.  What?"

"I didn't know what else to call it," the man shrugged.  "You're over there every spare moment for months, chocolate on Valentines, he's all you talk about.  And then suddenly you're up here, ignoring this nice weather, when nobody in their right mind stays indoors.  Or did I have the wrong idea?"

Arai could only stare at the man in the doorway.  He knew?  How had he known?    
"You never said anything."

"Not really my place, is it?" said his uncle.  "I'm not a parent, and you're too old to need coddling.  Anyway, you're good about responsibility, I trust you to make good decisions, and you haven't let me down.  What's there for me to say?"

"I guess uh.  I dunno," said Arai, uncertain whether to feel warmed by the plain-spoken praise, or uncomfortable that they were discussing this at all.  Still, he supposed, it had to come sooner or later.  

"Does it.  Does it bother you at all?" he asked, after a moment.

His uncle considered this.  "If you're happy and doing well, if you've got someone who's good for you, then no.  I'm not bothered."  He looked from Arai, to the stack of boxes in the corner.

"I'm on your side, kid," he said.  "If you need help, all you have to do is ask.  And if you ever want to talk, let me know.  I'll listen."

Arai took a second to absorb that. It might have occurred to him, once or twice, that someone might think he and Takashi were something more than just friends. But he couldn't believe there was anything to be ashamed about, there. If people didn't like it, well it wasn't really their business, was it? Neither he or Takashi were really the type to open up their private lives to everybody in town, but Arai didn't think he cared to lie about it, either, if it happened to come up. Certainly not to his uncle.

Still, the fact that man had picked up on it, and never mentioned anything--at least not until he'd picked up on something amiss--was a bit startling. Maybe Arai hadn't learned as much from Takashi's lessons on avoiding distractions, as he'd thought.

"Okay, um. Thanks," he told his uncle. "I'll remember that."

"So then everything's okay, with you and Morinozuka?" his uncle asked.  
Arai pulled in a deep breath, to push down the perpetual twinges of hurt and confusion he'd been fighting the past few days, and knit his fingers into tight knots in his lap.  

"Well it's...."  He wasn't going to lie, but it was complicated.  And Arai had no idea where to start telling his uncle about Takashi; the best friend who he cared about, and worried over, and had missed so much the last two days that every time he thought about it, he could barely breathe.  

Sakura-san had said to give Takashi some time with his father, but it was one of those things easier said than done.  The more he'd thought about what had happened that afternoon, the more he felt convinced that something fateful and terrible was in store for Takashi.  What exactly, he wasn't sure.  All he knew was that no matter how hard he tried not to worry, and keep himself occupied, even to the point of exhausting himself with exercise, it wasn't doing a damn thing to help.

"I, uh. Thought I might head over there later today," he finally said. Because honestly, he couldn't stand another day of this.  "See if he wants to get out for awhile."

"Good," his uncle nodded.  "Saves me the trouble of kicking you outside myself," he smiled.  "No sense wasting a day like this moping indoors."

After his uncle left, Arai sat and stared at those boxes he had shoved off in the corner and deliberately turned a blind eye to, ever since they'd arrived.  What was it Sakura-san had mentioned about unfinished business?  He wasn't clear on how that applied to Takashi and his dad exactly, unless it was something to do with the Haninozuka family.  But whatever that business entailed, it had obviously taken Takashi unprepared, and shaken him up badly enough to turn him into someone Arai suddenly didn't recognize. To be honest, Arai wasn't sure what stung him worse; this sudden rift breaking open between them, or having to sit here alone and imagine how bad it must feel, on Takashi's end.

Maybe that's why nobody ever talked about 'unfinished business' in a positive way. Because of how it always seemed to come at a person out of the blue, and disrupt the life they were trying to just along with. And with that in mind, Arai thought, maybe it was a bad idea to keep letting his own baggage go ignored.  Best he deal with it now, so it couldn't take him by surprise at the wrong time, later.  

It might not be easy, but what his uncle had said made sense.  Facing what was in those boxes of old belongings couldn't be much harder than everything else he'd dealt with so far.  And what had Takashi really been teaching him all along?  What had been the same basic message in their doujo sessions--in their whole friendship, come to think of it?

It was simple:  stand up straight, be patient, and pay attention.   Whether it was on the balance beam, or climbing the hill behind the pear orchard, or watching Takashi that afternoon, going in to face his father.  Whatever Arai needed to do, it always seemed to start with those three things.

Sitting there on the floor, looking at the boxes full of his old life, Arai decided it was time to see what he'd learned.  It might be awhile before got to face his parents directly, but it wouldn't hurt to begin preparing.  And maybe it would be good, to look at all those mementos, and the bad memories attached to them. Maybe he could prove to himself that he wasn't the same weak, lamed, scared kid who'd left his parent's house two years ago.

Once he was done clearing out the boxes, and putting the past behind him where it belonged, then perhaps he'd be ready to go visit Takashi, and put those concerns to rest too.

 

*  *  *  *  *


	4. Chapter 4

Mori stalked across the doujo mat, sword hilt wet in his grip, turning and parrying along a strict narrow line.  He moved fast and recklessly, fighting through the positions of the kata in raw, harsh gestures; forgoing the elegance of the motions for a pace that frayed the outside edge of his control.  Unrelenting, he spun and lunged between imaginary opponents, turning on a high-arched foot;  dropping low for one turn and then rising to whip the long blade in a gleaming arc overhead with the next, cutting the air with the faint whistle of honed steel; a sweet note with a deadly edge.

He planted one foot, locked his elbows, and snapped his wrists tight, splitting clean through the heart of empty space, before he froze.

"You over-reached with the right shoulder, and you're off-balance from the blade angle," his father commented, having just appeared in the doorway.  "Now you can't recover leverage before the enemy in back has you."

It didn't occur to Mori to contradict;  instead, he reversed his thrust and released the sword handle with an upward flick of his right hand, catching it overhanded as the blade tipped down.  Flexed his elbow, and drove the sword out straight behind him.  Following his arm's angle, he reversed on his heels, grasping the hilt in his left hand and correcting his right hand's grip.  Then he again froze in place, and waited.

"Hm," said his father, striding forward.  "You've slowed down, without proper sparring practice.  Some time in a real doujo will do you good.  Wake up the reflexes again."

Mori clenched his weapon and brought his heels together in a rigid closing stance.  What his father said would be true, if Mori had even the least interest in regaining his competitive edge.  But he didn't, and he didn't welcome the implication that he should return to his former path in order to improve himself.

Yet he was no more inclined to make excuses for himself in this regard, than he'd been when his father pointed out the error in his form.  He simply drew his sword up and slipped it back into the scabbard at his side, deciding the conversation he'd been waiting for wasn't occurring after all.  For two days, they'd been discreetly circling one another, much in the manner of formal combatants, waiting to see which would betray their intentions first.  Mori was aware his father observed him closely at every opportunity, but he had yet to figure out the purpose of the scrutiny.  And he knew that dwelling on it, letting that constant critical eye upset his equilibrium, would give away any advantage he might have.

Better to hold back, he'd been telling himself, until his father chose a more direct approach.

"Thank you for the suggestion," he said.  "I'll remember that correction in the future."  He bowed to his father, as one conceding the ring to a fellow swordsman, and turned to leave.

"Sensei will be hard on you, when you return," he heard his father say.  "I suggest you ready yourself for extra discipline."

Mori stopped dead in his tracks.  

Oh. So this was it, then.  The opening parry.  He'd been more or less expecting to hear something along these lines since his father had arrived.  Still, expecting something and being actually confronted with it were two different things.

"I apologize, if Morinozuka-sama has misunderstood," he said, turning about slowly.  "But I had not yet intended to return to Tokyo."

"Nonsense," said his father.  "There's nothing keeping you here, and you're clearly recovered your health enough to return to your duties."

_My health....?_   Mori thought, keeping very still in an attempt to conceal the raw sting of that pronouncement; too much like the slice of a careless blade.   _What has he been telling himself all this time?_

"It wasn't a question of my health," he quietly pointed out.  "It was made clear to me that Mitsukuni....no longer requires my duties."  Bringing his cousin's name into the discussion was risky, but there was no way around it.  Mori kept his eyes averted, and his tone neutral, as he had done since his father's arrival, knowing that if there was to be confrontation between them, and he were to one to spark it, he would in that same instant come out the loser.

"You cannot be certain of that," his father persisted.  "Certain sources have suggested to me that Haninozuka-sama expects his heir to return home any day."

Well there was one question put to rest.  Since before he'd left home, Mori had suspected a similar separation between his father and Haninozuka-sama, as had occurred between himself and his cousin.  And now his father's indirect, almost evasive phrasing confirmed it.  

Momentarily, he wondered how his father had taken the separation, before realizing the signs of it were right in front of him: his father simply hadn't accepted it.  Furthermore, if Mori's guess was correct, it appeared he was looking to Mori to repair a breach he himself had so far been unable to.  

Never in his life had Mori denied any request from his father. Never, had he told the man that something he wanted couldn't be accomplished. Mori wasn't sure anyone ever had. And now here they were, up against the unthinkable and no way to avoid it, and Mori had absolutely no idea how to express to his father, that what he wanted was impossible.  

This wasn't good, he thought.  Not good at all.

His father was warming to what he likely imagined was a rousing speech to his son.  Declaring it was time to become stronger, and face their challenges.  Prove that the Morinozuka were a worthy family, and would not falter or give way in the face of discouragement.

"You must go back and prove to your cousin that you are steadfast," his father declared forcefully, pacing back and forth across the doujo floor.  "That the Morinozuka family's devotion shall never waver."

Mori listened, feeling a sudden exhaustion slipping up on him, along with the memory of that terrible period after his cousin had left.  His devotion never had wavered, but with its object removed, Mori had been left with only a constant unfulfilled ache.  It was not merely lifelong habit that had kept him in Mitsukuni's company, it was Mori's purpose.  Being with his cousin had been the single constant that had centered his entire world.  Then that center was removed from him, along with the only purpose he'd ever known, leaving him freefalling without any axis or orbit; months and months with nothing at all to steady him.

It astonished Mori, that his father could talk to him about steadfastness, when Mori had done nothing in all that time except stand watch, waiting for his purpose to return, because he knew nothing else to do.   The man had to know good and well that Mitsukuni had been forced to forbid Mori on no uncertain terms, from following along, by the time he departed.  

Even then, Mori had considered disobeying his cousin's wishes and trailing after him anyway.  All he could think, was if only he had held on.  If only he had been more faithful, more persuasive. If only he had found some deeper well of strength, that would enable him to keep the old vows of his birthright.

_I should have_ , he used to tell himself, standing night after night in the estate drive, straining to see the headlights of a returning car in the darkness.  A car which never came.    _I should have_ , when he lay staring at the pink plush rabbit Mitsukuni had left in his care.   _I should have_ , in the courtyard, and  _I should have_ , haunting the silent hallways of home.   _Should have, should have,_ over and over until it became a constant litany that drowned all else out, like the sound of hard rain on windows, roofs, and fallen crimson leaves.

And now, watching his father pace and rail at a chasm he refused to cross--though the man's heels were pushed to the very edge--Mori felt a miserable compassion for him.  But he also felt suffocating fear.  For in the background of this place where his father still stood, insisting he return, Mori could hear the rain again, like it had never stopped.  As though all this time, no matter how far he'd traveled, no matter all he'd done and felt ( _oh, Arai_ ) it had only been waiting to draw him back.

His father paused for breath, but Mori could still hear that ghostly blood-chilling rain, growing louder with every passing second.  Then as near to screaming panic as he had ever felt in his life, he gave a curt bow, mumbling some senseless apology, and fled.  

He hardly remembered reaching his room, stripping off his hakama and kimono, and pulling on street clothes.  And he must have said something to the person he stumbled into on his way to the front entrance, but he had no idea what, or who he'd even spoken to.  His next solid recollection was in the cab of the grocery truck; slumping in the seat, struggling for breath, and telling Arai that anywhere was fine.  Just away, please.  Now.

 

*  *

 

Somehow Arai knew, from the moment he saw Takashi marching down the driveway, that the time had come.  It was Arai's turn to be the straight shoulder now.  The listening ear, and the strong, steady hand.  He got it from the hard knot of Takashi's jaw, and the too-wide distant unblinking stare, and the way Takashi scuffed to a startled halt next to the truck, as though he hadn't even seen it there until he almost walked into it.

Their eyes met through the passenger window, and Arai understood this wasn't the time for questions or discussion.  It was time to stand up and act on his promises.  So he scooted across the bench seat, pushed the door open for Takashi, and said in all seriousness, "Where to?"

 

Takashi had no answer, not a single word. So Arai turned back for town on pure instinct, sparing an occasional concerned glance over at Takashi, who sat with his arms crossed and his head propped against the window, eyes watching nothing as the sunlit winter landscape rolled by.  

First, Arai considered going back to the store.  But he doubted Takashi was really up for his uncle at the moment, or any other people for that matter.  He thought about just driving around town for awhile, which Takashi might not mind (given the state he was in, it was doubtful whether he'd even notice).  But Arai didn't want to pay attention to his driving, he wanted--he _needed_ to pay attention to his friend.

Pulling up at the first main intersection in town, Arai had a choice between a right or left-hand turn.  Left would take him through a winding residential area, and right would take him through the older central part of town, south of the business district, towards the the old municipal building.  The gardens behind the building may not be much to look at this time of year, but Arai thought at least no one would bother them there.

It wasn't until he was walking around the building, checking over his shoulder to see that Takashi was still shuffling after him (blank-faced, empty, and oh god what had happened to him?), that Arai realized he almost couldn't have picked a better spot if he'd tried.  It was Saturday, and the municipal offices were closed.  Most people were at the public park across town, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, or else shopping a few blocks north.  In the gardens it was hushed and shady, among the redwoods and cypress, and to Arai's relief, no one was in the small gazebo at the end of the path.

"I know it's not quite the view you're used to," he told Takashi, thinking of Ichigo's tea house up on the hill.  "But this is where I used to come last summer.  Y'know, to get away and think."  
Takashi stood looking around a moment, then nodded.  Taking it for agreement, Arai led him to the wooden bench inside.

"This was about as far as I could walk, after a day in the store," he explained.  He told Takashi about limping up here in the evenings, after everybody was gone for the day.  How he'd sit by himself, or sometimes lay on his back and stare at the roof.  It was quiet, except for the crickets.  He could pretend like this was his own space for awhile, like there wasn't anything else to worry about.

"I thought about camping out here some night.  But the night guard probably would've thrown me out," he chuckled.

"I camped in the teahouse.  Night before last."

Arai did his best to hide his enormous relief, at Takashi finally speaking up.  "Yeah?  How was it?"

Takashi shrugged.  "Dark."  He looked down at Arai's hands, loose in his lap.  "Lonely," he added, very quietly.

"Too bad I wasn't there," said Arai, laying his left hand on the bench next to Takashi's right, so their pinkies overlapped.  He could feel Takashi tense next to him, then he sighed and his shoulders dropped.

"Yes," he said.  He tilted slowly sideways, until his shoulder was propped against Arai's, and for the first time, Arai realized how hard it could be, being the steady one.  Especially when you ached like anything inside, for the person leaning on you.

"Keep talking to me?" Takashi asked.  He turned his hand palm up, and slipped it beneath Arai's hand, lacing their fingers together.

Arai put aside his ache, and his swell of selfish gratitude at that small, incredibly important gesture, and tried his best to do what Takashi had asked.  He told Takashi about the boxes in his room.  How they'd sat in the way for weeks, until today, when he'd finally found the nerve to open them.  He talked about the summer clothes that were too small for him now, and how all the posters and pennants and stuff that used to be on his walls at home, looked like artifacts from a stranger's life.

He tried to explain about the soccer trophies.  "They used to mean I was good at something," he said.  "That I was going somewhere with my life.  But it's weird.  I was looking at them today, and they don't mean anything.  They're just....," he shrugged.  "Just stuff."

After a long quiet, Takashi said, "I put everything that reminded me of Kendo in a storeroom.  My uniforms.  Weapons.  Armor.  Tournament medals."  He shook his head.  "Nothing ever comes out of that storeroom.  We only put things in it.  It could all burn, and no one would miss what was in there."

"Big storeroom?" Arai guessed, looking over at him.  
"About the size of a barn."  
"Ah."

"I don't want to go back there," Takashi finally said, a confession so soft it was nearly a whisper.  "But that's why my father came.  To take me back."

It took everything Arai had not to clench the hand holding his just then, hard and possessively.  To swallow down the immediate protest that boiled up in him.  To keep still and steady, and not panic over his deepest fear of the last two days coming true.  Because whatever Takashi needed, it surely wasn't Arai losing his head right now.  He couldn't help that he had to clear his throat, or that he stammered a little;  he did the best he could.

"Would--would you go?  Could he make you?"

"I don't want to fight with him," Takashi answered wearily.  "He still hasn't accepted the reason Mitsukuni left;  that the Haninozuka want us to be something other than a family of servants to them.  I think my father is afraid."

"Afraid?"  Arai asked, surprised.

"He's fifty-three years old, and doesn't know what else he is for," Takashi explained.  "Our family's name and future is his responsibility.  I think he behaves angrily because he doesn't know what else to do.  But I won't fight with him."

Arai tried to make sense of it.  "He thinks if you go back home, your cousin will, what, change his mind?"

"Something like that."  
"But it wouldn't really help, would it," Arai guessed.  
"No."  
"And you'd be miserable for no reason."

"Probably," Takashi said.  Then he sighed, and decided, "Yes."

Any way you looked at it, Arai thought, there was no simple answer.  If Takashi's father didn't want to understand, and if Takashi understandably didn't want to fight with him, then what other option was there?

"I could clean out my room," he offered, half-joking.  "You could move in and share it with me."

"I'd be in the way," Takashi said, but a tiny dimple tugged at one corner of his mouth.   On impulse, Arai reached over gave the dimple a fond brush with this thumb.

"That's alright.  Me and my uncle are always in each other's way.  We're used to it," he smiled.

Takashi didn't say anything;  he leaned against Arai, and stroked his fingertips up and down Arai's knuckles, over and over.

"Oh, hey," said Arai, as something occurred to him.  "I totally forgot what was here."

Takashi looked up at him curiously.

"There's something I was going to show you, on the other side of the garden."  Arai was amazed he hadn't remembered earlier.  Granted, he'd been concerned with other things, but still.  "You want to come see?"

Takashi nodded his agreement, and Arai stood, keeping their hands clasped together.

 

*  *

 

The statue of Morinozuka Ichigo was bronze, and weathered by decades.  But Arai had been right;  there was no mistaking the tall figure positioned in the shadow of the great bare elm tree.

"I still don't think I look like him," Mori decided.  
"It's around the eyes," Arai told him, with the confidence of one who had done serious study.  He cocked his head slightly.  "And the shoulders, too, I think."

Mori stepped forward for a closer look.  "Do I really stand like that?"  
"Sometimes," Arai told him.  "In the doujo, I've seen it."    
"Hm."

"You know, the old people in town, the ones who remember him, they say this park is a safe place because he stands here guarding it."

"Really?" said Mori, surprised once more by his great-grandfather's connection to this town.  A connection which was never mentioned in the Tokyo house, because no one seemed inclined to talk about the 'other' life--the Karuizawa life--of the Morinozuka who, for all his greatness, had bucked the tradition of generations.

More than once, Mori had wondered if no one would talk about him either, in years to come.  If perhaps he was only another fluke; a dead-end offshoot from the Morinozukas' secure, well-worn path of centuries.  It wasn't the thought of anonymity which bothered him, so much as the thought of so much trouble wasted, if he and Mitsukuni were indeed the only ones to establish independent lives.  If his brother Satoshi remained attached to Mitsukuni's brother,Yasuchika-- which his father mentioned pointedly, he still was--then....

Abruptly, Mori straightened, as a new possibility occurred to him.  It was risky, very risky, but there was a chance he could use it to bargain with his father.  At the very least, it could buy him time, help convince his father that Mori's return to Tokyo was less necessary than his father believed.

"You alright, Takashi?" Arai was asking, and Mori turned, took a moment and really studied the young man at his side.  Studied his dear face, and his impossibly honest eyes.  He smoothed his fingers across the worry lines on Arai's forehead, and laid his hand on the sturdy shoulder he'd rested against.  A shoulder that wasn't square all the time, but was always strong enough when it counted, and always willing.

Mori knew he could manage, if he were exiled from the family home.  He knew that even if his father banned him from the summer estate, and cut off his inheritance, he could get by somehow.  But the one thing he could not lose, and would not trade for all his fortune and family favor, was this.  This solace, and absolute trust, and the bone-deep certainty he felt every time he looked at Arai;  that this person was someone he could easily spend every moment of every day with.  He could lie down with him each night, and wake up to see him each morning, memorize every single thing about him, and still Arai would be able to stop his heart with a look.  That look Mori still saw from time to time, the one that said  _I know you.  I'll always know who you are._

He leaned forward then, and straight in the gaze of his great-grandfather's statue, kissed Arai's forehead, then bent down and brushed a chaste kiss across his lips.  
When he pulled back, Arai was wide-eyed.  

"Takashi," he whispered.

"No matter what happens," Mori told the young man, "You are always welcome with me.  And I'll never be ashamed of you, or anything we do together.  On my honor."

He paused, to give his words time to sink in, then said, "I have one favor to ask."  
"Anything," Arai said breathlessly, and Mori smiled for a second, wondering how he'd attracted such zeal.

"I need to speak with my father again.  I've thought of a....compromise I can offer him.  But it won't be easy.  He may be angry, and argue, and make things very unpleasant."

Arai frowned a little.  "Are you sure that's a good idea?  I mean, it sounds like you're about to go pick a fight with him."

Mori shook his head.  "He'll turn it into a sparring match, because that's how he is.  And he won't like my offer, but hopefully he'll understand he can save face."  
Arai looked even more doubtful.  "You aren't going to do something crazy, are you?  This won't get you kicked out of your family or anything, will it?"

Knowing he couldn't mislead Arai, Mori had to consider his next words carefully.    
"Spring planting starts next month.  Hito and the groundskeeper have already been lining up help.  This situation with my father must be resolved, before we can go forward."

"You want me to drive you back again," Arai stated, giving Mori an astute, somewhat unsettling stare.  
"I'm sorry for the trouble."

"It's not that," Arai shook his head.  "I told you I'd do anything, and I meant it."  He said nothing more, but his obviously troubled air persisted all the way back to the truck, and then all along the drive home.

 

"Just for the record, I don't like this," Arai said, as they rolled to a stop in the rear drive.  "I don't like leaving you, when--."  He broke off, and sighed.  Shifted the truck into park, and shut off the ignition.

"Do you remember that night when you were out in the road?  When I almost ran over you?"

"The night I got lost."

"Yeah.  You had this look, when I saw you.  Same look you had, when I first showed up that morning in the kitchen.  It was like...."  He searched for the words a moment, and then gave up, shaking his head.  

"It was bad, okay?  It worried the hell out of me back then.  And when I saw you coming down your driveway earlier, it was like seeing the same thing all over again.  Only now, I really care about you, and I hate the thought that anything can make you look like that.  And I really hate the thought of leaving you to whatever happened before.  You shouldn't have to feel like--like you're lost.  And you shouldn't have to be alone, Takashi."

"I'm sorry," Mori told him, and he meant it.  "But I need to do this, while there's still time."  
"I believe you," Arai sighed.  "But I still think it sucks."  
Mori chuckled softly.  "I agree."  

He looked out the window at the side of the house, the place that had been first his convalescent ward, and then his sanctuary these past months.  It was possible that in a matter of hours, he could be walking back out of there disowned, cut off from the shelter and privilege he'd always taken for granted.  And yet oddly, for the first time, this place felt like home to him.  And the queer, empty twist deep within him could only be homesickness.

For a bare second Mori wavered, suffering an acute premonition of regret.  He turned to Arai, needing something reassuring to ground him.

"If I didn't have a name tomorrow," he asked, "would you still know what to call me?"

Arai opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it.  Stared long and hard at the steering wheel, and then unsnapped his seat belt, and turned slowly to face Mori.  He drew his knee up on the seat, slung his arm around the head rest, and fixed Mori with eyes that for all their guilelessness, were serious and sharp as a harpoon on target.  Mori could feel those eyes, searching all the way into his marrow, memorizing everything they touched, and branding the very thoughts in his brain.

He knew he had his answer then;  Arai couldn't have made it more clear if he'd spelled it out in blazing neon.  But apparently Arai wasn't satisfied yet.  

Without warning, he slid across the seat, pinning Mori in the corner of the cab, and kissed him hungrily.  One hand slipped beneath Mori's shirt, seeking bare skin, and the other cradled the back of Mori's neck, holding him in the kiss as it opened into softness and heat, and quick-caught breaths.  Arai's fingers trailed up Mori's ribs like they were reading by touch, and Mori's spine unraveled at the sensation of teeth tugging his lower lip, followed by a darting tongue.  He pushed forward, needing more air, and more touch, and more of that sweet searing mouth, but Arai held him still.  Pulled back gasping and fever-bright, hair mussed, and lips wet and red.  Yet still his look was bold, utterly focused, and Mori had never seen anything so beautiful.

"I don't care what happens," the young man said.  "I'm going to find you, Takashi.  I promise you that."

Mori was somehow both stunned and invigorated.  He felt like someone had just slapped into a suit of armor, handed him a sword, and shoved him at a dragon that needed slaying.  And he was ready for it.  He was ready for anything now.

 

*  *  *  *  *


	5. Chapter 5

Hito wandered into the dining room, where Sakura was dusting.

"Arai -san fetched Bocchama back again," he announced.  Sakura let out a breath of relief.  
"Well are they coming in?" she asked.

"Bocchama is.  His friend is leaving again."  
Sakura shook off her duster and nodded.  "It's for the best, as long as Morinozuka-sama is here."

"If this weather keeps up," said Hito, ambling over toward the high glass doors looking out on the courtyard, "I'm worried the trees will bud.  Two more days of this, and we could lose half the pears and plums, at the next freeze."

"I can't say I miss the cold," Sakura told him.  "But the timing is bad.  We could save the kitchen garden, but the trees.....Bocchama was counting on them."

Hito turned to answer, just as Bocchama himself came striding through from the kitchen.  Sakura noticed right away that his color was high, and his eyes bright and sharp.  
Before she had the chance to greet him, he said, "Sakura-san.  Please tell Morinozuka-sama I would like to meet with him in the library.  As soon as he's able."

"Of course," she said, hiding her startlement with a short bow.  "Shall I deliver tea, as well?"

"No, thank you," the young man said.  He nodded to her and Hito, before heading off to the main hall.

Waiting until he was well out of earshot, Sakura turned to Hito.  "Looks like the spring storms are coming early, too."  
"Could be," the old man allowed.  "Though this one might be right on schedule."  At her questioning look, he added, "Sometimes you need a good early storm,  to shake all the deadwood loose."

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Normally, Arai didn't have this much trouble, backing out of the delivery drive onto the main estate driveway.  The problem was, every time he looked in his rear view mirror, he kept seeing Takashi's face after that kiss.  When he'd made his promise, the way Takashi's eyes lost their look of half-dazed pleasure (which Arai could happily watch all day), and went fully alert in an instant.  The way he sat up, charged with a readiness that all but came humming off him.

All he'd meant to do was prove to Takashi, beyond any doubt, that he would be looking out for him when this thing with Takashi's dad was finished.  Arai wanted to show he wasn't going anywhere, no matter what verdict came out of that house.  And if the kiss helped Takashi to not come out of the confrontation looking like a defeated ghost, so much the better. 

Except that now, Arai was having trouble leaving.  He couldn't lose the feeling that if Takashi did come out defeated somehow, he was going to need someone right away.  And if he came out having won whatever confrontation he was going into, Arai wanted to be there for that too.

Ever since Takashi had told him about his early doujo training, Arai would get this flash now and then, of a five year old boy, silent and a little awkward, falling off a tree stump into an icy pond.  No one was ever there to catch him, the way Arai imagined it.  The boy could only shake off the numbing cold and climb back up on his own, time after time.  

Arai couldn't think of a single instance in their lessons that Takashi hadn't been there to catch him if he fell.  But who had ever caught Takashi?  Really, Arai hadn't needed Sakura-san to tell him that Morinozukas never learned to ask for what they needed.  The evidence had been right in front of him all along.  

Except that now, he thought, just between the two of them, that was changing.  After all, hadn't Takashi just asked if Arai would still know him?  And wasn't that really just another way of saying he needed Arai to be around?   _No matter what happens...,_ was the other thing Takashi had said.  Wanting Arai to know for certain; _needing_ Arai to know for certain, that he was cared for.  

How could Takashi possibly expect him to hear something like that, and then leave it?  Just back away and let it go, and hope that things worked out somehow.  That was crazy, Arai thought.  Especially when it was obvious that Takashi was likely to need someone around to catch him; if not at that very moment, then soon.

"Y'know what?" Arai suddenly said to his rear view mirror.  "To hell with this."  He spun the steering wheel straight, shifted the truck from reverse to drive, and pulled forward toward the house once more.  

If he got called on it, so what?  He could always claim a misunderstanding.  After all, Takashi had only asked to be taken home, right?   He hadn't mentioned anything about Arai leaving, or staying;  it wasn't part of the favor he'd asked at all.

_Seriously,_  Arai could tell him.   _Who in their right mind would leave somebody they loved, at a time like this?_   That would sure give Takashi something to think about.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Mori stood at the large table in the library, hands planted on the tabletop, looking over the legacy he'd all but memorized by now.  The maps of the summer estate, his great-grandfather's ledgers and almanacs, and the plans for the irrigation system; so old the ink was fading.  These were not all the things he would be bargaining for, but they would suffice for a representation to his father.

Perhaps the man wouldn't understand that Morinozuka honor was alive and well in this house.  That the tending, and the constancy, and the guardianship their name was known for, was demonstrated even here.  Perhaps his father would consider it unimportant, that Mori had discovered a different connection to his ancestors, or had kept watch for days and weeks as a young man learned to stand on his own again, or had walked these lands until he knew every square meter by heart.  That was all right.  Mori knew.

There was a movement in the doorway, and Mori straightened, nodded to his father.  
"I thought those old things had been thrown out years ago," the man said, looking at the table.  "Your grandfather said he'd come and cleaned this place out, after his father died."

"Our gardener saved them," Mori said.  "In case they were ever needed again."  
"For what?" asked his father.  "The Morinozuka haven't cultivated in decades."

Mori cocked his head, intrigued at his father's choice of words.  "Maybe we ought to cultivate," he offered.  "This family could have more potential than we know."

His father gave him a sharp look.  "We'd do better to tend the responsibilities we've been given, before we go looking for others.  Only a fool divides his priorities, when so much is at stake."

"My cousin made it clear he doesn't wish to be my responsibility," Mori told him.  "For me to impose on him, merely for the sake of tradition--"  
"It is your birthright," his father interrupted vehemently.  "It is the duty that comes down to you with your name.  Your family's honor will rest on your shoulders, as my heir.  You cannot simply cast that off, over some small misunderstanding with the Haninozuka heir."

Mori looked at his father, and gathered every scrap of patience he possessed, knowing he would need it.  
"There was no misunderstanding.  But if you feel strongly that the heir's duty is only to the Haninozuka, then we should discuss the terms of my inheritance," he said.

"Terms?" his father looked surprised.  "There are no terms.  The eldest son of our line inherits everything.  That's how it's always been."

Mori took a deep, steadying breath. "In that case, I wish to pass everything to my brother.  Now, so he has time to learn the responsibilities."

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Sakura gave the young man at the back door a long, level look.  She noticed he stood straight, certain, and there was something about his expression that she'd seen in Bocchama's earlier, when the young master announced he wanted his father summoned to the library.  Arai-san could almost pass for a Morinozuka, with that expression, she thought.  

"Bocchama is speaking with his father," she told him.  "I apologize, but I cannot interrupt them."  
"I understand," Arai told her.  "Is it all right if I wait here, though?"

"They may be quite some time," she cautioned.  
Arai nodded.  "If I'm not imposing, I'd like to wait anyway."

"It's certainly no imposition on me," Sakura said, and ushered him inside.  "Can I offer you tea, or coffee?"  
"Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine," said Arai, slipping his shoes off in the pantry.

"Very well.  I'm sorry I cannot keep you company, but other work requires my attention.  You're welcome to wait in the kitchen as long as you like."  She escorted him to the old wooden table, taking a quick swipe at a chair back with her apron.  "I'll let you know, as soon as Bocchama is free."

"I appreciate that," he told her.  "And thank you for letting me in."

Sakura paused at the door to the dining room, and considered telling him that Bocchama may well need all the help he could get, soon.  But then seeing the young man's grave earnestness, Sakura knew he already understood.  It was the very reason he'd asked to wait here:  in case he was needed.

She gave him a solemn nod of approval, and returned to her work.

 

*  *  *  *  *


	6. Chapter 6

"You cannot be serious about this," Mori's father said.  "To say that you would--you would  _repudiate_  more than two hundred years of honor and guardianship, as though it were nothing."

"I don't want to repudiate," Mori told him.  "But isn't Satoshi a better choice, by your ideals?  At least he is still close to Haninozuka Yasuchika."  He nodded down toward Ichigo's farm records.  "If it's permissible, I wish to become custodian for this estate.  In exchange, Satoshi may have the Tokyo house, and all the other holdings."

His father crossed to the nearest chair, by the windows looking out on the front lawn.  He sat heavily, with his hands on his knees, staring down at the faded heirloom rug.  "What could you possibly do here?"  he finally asked.  "How could this," gesturing to the window, "be more important than your heritage?"

Before Mori could answer, there was a knock at the library door.  Mori glanced at his father, who only shrugged.  
"Yes?" Mori called toward the door.

"Ah, Takashi-sama," bowed Kuki-chan.  "My deepest apologies, but I found Arai-san waiting for you in the kitchen.  I'm terribly sorry no one informed you earlier."

As Mori looked on, too startled to speak, Kuki-chan stepped aside, allowing Arai to pass through the door.  
"Please forgive me, Takashi-sama, I'm sure you would not have wished your friend to wait so long."  She bowed after Arai once more, and asked, "Is there anything else young master or his friend requires?"

Mori found his voice, with an effort.  "No.  Thank you, Kuki-chan."  
As she departed, Arai said, "Sorry.  I just asked her if you were still uh, busy, and she brought me straight in here.  Were you--."  He broke off as he turned, and spotted Mori's father for the first time.

"Oh.  I beg your pardon, sir," Arai said, bowing hurriedly.  "I apologize for interrupting."  He shot a quick, worried glance at Mori, and then back toward the closed door.  "Obviously Kuki-chan made a mistake.  I'll just step out."

In a flash of insight, Mori knew it would be all too easy to let Arai escape, and pass the intrusion off as a momentary mistake, to his father.  It would be simpler for the time being, and likely safer, especially considering the shaky ground he stood on now.  However he knew also that no matter how much it might make things easier now, Mori would never forgive himself later, for going back on his word.  He had told Arai he would always be welcome, and now even in spite of the circumstances, and his cringing sense of imminent disaster, he felt bound to make good on that.

"Arai," he said quickly, coming around the table toward him.  "Let me introduce you to my father."

The young man shot him a worried glance, but remembered his manners all the same.    
"Morinozuka-sama," he said, bowing once again.  "It's an honor to meet you."

Mori's father stood, and sketched a bow with the bare minimum of courtesy.

"This is my close friend, Arai-san," Mori provided.  "He lives in town, and is a frequent guest here."  He hoped his particular use of the term 'guest' would remind his father that the Morinozuka code of hospitality was as much in effect here, as it would be in the Tokyo house.  That whatever contention may exist between he and his father, at least their guest would be respected.

"How do you do,"  his father told Arai, before dismissing him and turning to Mori.  From his expression, Mori knew their time-out was finished, and sparring would shortly resume.

"So it seems my earlier question has been answered," his father said after a moment.  "You have 'close friends' here.  Close enough to throw away your inheritance over, perhaps?"

Mori heard Arai pull in a tight breath, but he kept his eyes on his father.  "My heritage is also here," he answered.  "Was Morinozuka-sama aware of his grandfather's statue, in the town?"

"Ichigo."  His father shook his head, frustrated.  "You misdirect your energies, you misplace your devotion, and you choose an impossibly stubborn man for your role model.  You know, I might be tempted to name your brother as sole heir after all, seeing as you are so determined to reject the rest of us."

From the corner of his eye, Mori was aware of Arai sidling gradually nearer.  He didn't dare draw attention to it, but when Arai came close enough, Mori leaned the barest fraction sideways, and brushed shoulders with him.  Not once did he look away from his father, who'd been pacing the room as he spoke, but Mori could sense Arai settling next to him.  Truth be told, he was grateful to have him near, though it made the situation feel even more precarious.

"I am not rejecting my family," Mori said quietly.  "I would never."

His father stopped pacing, and turned on him.  "Then explain to me how else I should take this behavior?  My own son, born and raised in an ancient tradition of warriors and noble devotion, choosing to take up with farmers' sons instead of his own blood.  What else is that, but rejection?"

Mori felt his hands and shoulders tightening with anger, and sought to control himself.  Next to him, Arai shuffled his feet.

"Um.  Actually, sir, I'm from Tokyo.  Sugamo district."  He shrugged a little.  "I dunno if that helps any."

   
*  *  *  *  *

 

Sakura set down the phone, and shook her head heavily.  
"No answer?" Hito asked.

"I tried the main house too, but no one there has any news either."  She stood, and swept her hands briskly down her apron.  "Well, I suppose we can only hope for the best and prepare for the worst now.  And poor Arai-san," she clucked.  "I don't know how long he waited here for Bocchama, but he must have been discouraged.  Or perhaps his uncle needed him back."

"What are you talking about?" asked Hito.  "I just now saw that blue truck of his, out in the drive."  
"What?" asked Sakura, alarmed.  "Then where can he be?  He said he would wait here, until Bocchama could see him."

"Who knows?  Maybe he went for a walk," Hito said.  "Shall I have another look outside?"  
Sakura raised a finger.  "One moment," she said.

Quickly, she headed to the dining room, glanced inside to find it empty.  She continued forward from the dining room to the main hall, looked around there, then turned up the short corridor to the breakfast room.

Re-entering the kitchen from the breakfast room, she told Hito, "He isn't anywhere in--."  She broke off, seeing Kuki-chan enter from the laundry room opposite, her arms laden with table linens.

"I'm sorry it took so long," the girl was saying.  "But I tried to get the creases exactly like Sakura-san showed me."  She paused, and looked up innocently.  "Would Sakura-san like to check my work?"

"In a moment," Sakura told her.  "First, I must know if you've seen Bocchama's friend around anywhere?"  
"No, Sakura-san," said Kuki-chan.  "Not since I showed him to the library."

For the first time in many, many years, Sakura had to close her eyes and count to ten, to maintain her composure.  

"I'm sorry," she said after.  "Did I hear you say you took Arai-san to the library?"

"That's right," the girl told her.  "I guess no one heard him come in, and he was all alone in the kitchen.  And I thought since Arai-san had to leave early the other day, Bocchama would of course want to see his friend, so I...."  She trailed off, watching Sakura's expression with growing trepidation.  "I--I  didn't do the wrong thing, did I?"

"Oh, child," said Hito, shaking his head.  The maid glanced at him and saw for once he wasn't teasing, not even remotely.  She turned back to Sakura, suddenly tearful.  
"I'm sorry!" she cried.  "I thought I was being helpful to Bocchama, like you'd asked before.  I--I didn't--I only wished to help them."

Indeed, the girl was so sincere, and so mortified, that Sakura could only take pity on her.  She fished her handkerchief from her apron pocket, and handed it to Kuki-chan.  
"Here," she said gently.  "Pull yourself together.  It's not the end of the world, I suppose.  Just bad luck."

She looked past the girl's shoulder, over at Hito.  "What do we do now?"  
Hito looked thoughtful.  "I suppose we weather the storm.  Like always."

Sakura patted Kuki-chan's back, as the girl was weeping freely now.  "I may as well make some tea, while we wait," she answered, telling Kuki-chan, "There, there.  Go sit, and I'll bring you--."  From the pantry door sounded a knock, interrupting her.

"My word," she muttered, frowning with dismay.  "Who could be bringing deliveries at a time like this?  Of all the inconvenient, bothersome...."  Sakura steered the maid off toward Hito, and lectured the air quietly all the way to the pantry door.  Giving one last fretful sigh, she summoned her best manners, before opening the door.  

Unfortunately, her manners didn't stand up as well as she'd hoped, to the surprise awaiting her.  
"Heavens!" she gasped.  
"I beg your pardon for the intrusion, Sakura-san," said the visitor.  "But I came as quickly as I could.  I hope I'm not too late?"

 

*  *  *  *  *

Watching his father striking out as his anger escalated, Mori found it difficult to keep sight of his earlier compassion for the man, and to remember the critical importance of remaining calm.  He knew if they lost communication now, then everything would be lost.  But it was as though he were speaking in one language, and his father insisted on listening in another.  Furthermore, his father was making a difficult situation worse by choosing Arai --the outsider--as the focus for his own son's perceived failings.

"Have you no idea of the shame your selfishness brings on our family?" his father demanded.  "Just when you should be doing your utmost to prove yourself to the Haninozuka, you choose instead to tarry with some unworthy stranger--."

All at once, Mori was reminded of a different argument, two years ago.   _Haruhi's heart has no room in for him!_ He'd seen for himself how Hikaru's words had stung Arai, and Mori had bristled at that injustice.  But at the time, it had not been his place to defend the unlucky young man bearing the brunt of another's misplaced frustration.

This time, however, Mori felt well within his rights.   _Enough of this,_  he thought, stepping forward.

"Morinozuka-sama will remember he speaks of my esteemed friend."  Mori's raised voice cut across his father's angry rant like a sharp strike from a bamboo staff.  "Arai-san is in this house on my welcome, and he _will_  be treated respectfully."

After a moment's surprise, his father delivered a furious counterstrike.  "Since when does this family cater to commoners, over those we have sworn loyalty to for generations?" he shouted, red-faced.  Arai flinched next to Mori, and with that, his patience abruptly snapped.  He had to turn away, or else do something they would all regret.

"You shouldn't have to hear this."  He put his hand, trembling minutely, on Arai's shoulder.  "I apologize to you deeply, on my family's behalf, and I beg you to forgive our rudeness."  He turned and shot his father a hard look.  "Perhaps it's best if I escort my guest out, for now."

"But why should Arai-kun have to leave," came a high, mild voice from the doorway,  "when he's done nothing wrong?" 

Mori heard his father suck in a shocked breath;  saw Arai staring past his shoulder, taken aback.  His senses were overtaken by a strange sudden clarity, as he slowly turned, catching blinks of Arai's creased blue shirt.... 

His father, wide-eyed and frozen where he stood.... 

The sharp gleam of sun off the library windows.... 

And then in the doorway: Mitsukuni, giving the room a look Mori had seldom ever seen;  the Haninozuka eye of dire judgment that could stop an army in its tracks, and make it think twice.

_He looks taller,_  Mori thought distantly.  The room seemed to disconnect from gravity, taking on a slight tilt, and Mori felt a shifting under his hand;  realized he was leaning hard on Arai, and willed his knees to lock and hold him up.  

"Haninozuka-san!"  His father was the first to shake off his derailment, and jumped to attention, bowing low.  "You honor your servants unexpectedly."

"Morinozuka-sama," said Mitsukuni, bowing to the precise same angle as Mori's father.  "Your welcome is gracious, but surely you know that you're no more my servant than dear Sakura-san is."  He spoke with gentle, but strict dignity, and Mori's father blanched.

"Please, Haninozuka-san, allow me to intercede on my son's behalf in this matter.  He is foolish, and wayward, but after all this time--."  
"Morinozuka-sama," said Mitsukuni.  Mori's father stilled instantly, and Mitsukuni sighed.

"This has been difficult for you, I understand.  But please believe that I am proud of Takashi, exactly as he is.  Right now, I admire him more than anyone I know."  He turned toward Mori, with warmth that softened the fearsome edges of his sternness.  "He is the one who humbles us both."

"Mitsukuni," Mori murmured.  His head spun as the room righted itself gradually.  He blinked, and blinked again but impossibly, his cousin was still there.

"I'm sorry to come without calling you, Takashi," said Mitsukuni.  "Is it all right if I come in?"

Mori stared at him a moment longer, before the question registered.  "Of—yes, of course," he nodded.

Mitsukuni surprised them further by making a beeline not for Mori, but for Arai, who'd been shrinking steadily backward since Mori had released him.  
"Arai-kun," Mitsukuni beamed, putting a familiar hand on the young man's arm, and subtly drawing him back into the group.  "I am so happy to see you looking well."

Arai looked as disconcerted as Mori felt, but he managed a hesitant smile.  "Thank you, Mitsukuni-san.  It's--it's been a long time, hasn't it," he said.  
"Hm," Mitsukuni agreed.  "I look forward to catching up with you soon.  I hope you'll be around?"

"Ah....," Arai stalled uncertainly.  Mori knew Arai had turned to him for an answer, and momentarily broke off the look of profound gratitude he was giving his cousin.  
"Please," he agreed, holding the young man's gaze.  Knowing it was too much to ask, but praying anyway,  _Please.  Say you'll be around after this._   And maybe the message got through;  Arai rallied some, and his smile returned with confidence.  

"I'd like that," he told Mitsukuni.  "Thanks."  
"Don't forget, okay?" Mitsukuni said, patting Arai's shoulder.  "We have a lot to catch up on."

Across the room, Mori's father cleared his throat and stirred.  "If Haninozuka-san has the opportunity, perhaps there is a chance he could find time to speak with....the rest of us?"

Looking over, Mori saw the man standing diffident, and quite alone on his side of the room.  And from somewhere in his confusion, surfaced the possibility that all his father had wanted all along, was someone to help him make sense of things.  Only--not unlike Mori, in fact--he'd had no idea how to ask for that help.  And he'd found no friend to offer it, the way Arai had unconditionally and persistently helped Mori.  

Mitsukuni was telling his father that yes, he would be more than happy to speak with Morinozuka-sama.  "If Takashi and Arai-kun don't mind," he added, "maybe I could speak to him first?"  He glanced around hopefully.  "A talk over tea could be nice."

"Of course," Mori's father said.  "How thoughtless of me.  I'll order some immediately."

Seeing his father's abrupt reversal in attitude, Mori thought there might be hope after all, with Mitsukuni here.  For the man would always listen to a Haninozuka, even regarding matters as baffling to him as his own son's apparent defection.  And considering where their conversation had been headed before Mitsukuni's appearance....well, it might be best that he and Arai take a peaceful exit where they could get it, for now.

"It's all right," he told his father.  "I'll ask Sakura-san to bring in tea."  

His father nodded, and perhaps it was his imagination, but Mori had the fleeting impression they were each peeking around the edge of their defenses, acknowledging at least a temporary truce.  He turned to see Arai looking to him somewhat anxiously for direction.  

"Come with me?" he invited.

 

*  *  *  *  * 

They were but a few steps down the hall, when Mitsukuni hurried out behind them.  
"Takashi, wait!"  he called.

Mori and Arai both turned, to see Mitsukuni rushing over.  
"I didn't give you a hug!" he said.

Acting on pure reflex, Mori bent as Mitsukuni caught him in a swift, tight embrace.  And for an instant, it was as though they had never been separated.  His cousin's presence felt secure, familiar, and inexplicably right to Mori, just like it used to.

"It will be okay," Mitsukuni told him, arms tight around his neck.  "No one will take this away from you.  I won't let that happen."  
"Thank you," Mori murmured back.  "For coming here."

"I meant what I told your father," said Mitsukuni.  He pulled back, and looked Mori in the eye.  "I'm so proud of you, Takashi.  We'll talk soon, okay?"

Mori nodded, releasing him.  "You can't stay long, can you," he guessed.

For a second, Mitsukuni looked apologetic.  "Not more than a couple of days."  Then he gripped Mori's shoulder reassuringly.  "But that's all right.  You don't need me to stay."  
Mori returned his cousin's gaze for a few moments, then nodded his acceptance.  Mitsukuni was right;  finally, that acceptance felt real to Mori.  He no longer harbored any regret.

Just before the library door, Mitsukuni paused, with an air of wistful speculation that told Mori exactly what he was about to ask.    
"Ah, I don't want to be any trouble, but do you suppose Sakura-san has any cake in the pantry?  Even a small cake would be nice."

It was both peculiar and comforting, being able to smile fondly at his cousin, face to face after so long.    
"We'll go find out," he said, and turned to join Arai again.

 

*  *  *  *  *


	7. Chapter 7

"My father told me we were the guardians of kings.  I remember this from earliest childhood."

Morinozuka-sama stood by the library window, looking out at the lawn, his hands clasped behind him.  As quietly as he could, Hunny poured more tea for them both, at the library table.  Following a good five minutes of effusive apologies for all manner of trouble and inconvenience (real and imagined) on both sides, it had taken nearly an hour of idle chat--about travel, recent world news, the unusually warm weather, and inquiries into the health of various family members--before Takashi's father relaxed even a fraction.  Eventually, Hunny was able to tempt him to take a cup of tea, and now after the second cup, the man was finally beginning to speak his mind.

"No matter what else happened, my father said, the Morinozuka had a place in the world.  Never mind wars and restorations, or changing times.  We would always be secure, so long as we were steadfast.  The fortunes of the Haninozuka were our fortunes.  The values they embraced were our values.  We rose in the world as they rose, and if they should ever fall, the Morinozuka would still follow.  And now....?"  Morinozuka-sama turned to look at Hunny.

"Now what is to become of us?  What will the world see, when they look at the Morinozuka?  What becomes of my effort and care for my family, and my father's effort, and his father's effort?"

Hunny set aside the teapot, and slid one cup in Morinozuka-sama's direction.  He took up the cake knife, and deliberated for a moment, between Black Forest, Angel Food, and Lemon Poppyseed.  

"Would Morinozuka-sama care to enjoy some cake with me?" he asked.  As expected, the man shook his head.  
"Thank you, no."

Angel Food, to start, then.

"Does Morinozuka-sama know the most important lesson my father has taught me?" he asked, lifting a slice reverently to his plate;  pristine white and fragrant.

"If Haninozuka-san wishes to explain, I would be honored to hear it," the man told him.  
Hunny's eyes lingered a moment on the Lemon Poppyseed cake.  The flavor would compliment the Angel Food nicely, he thought, and took up the cake knife again.

"For a long time," said Hunny, "I thought it was a lesson he hadn't meant to teach."  He sighted down the cake knife, and cut with careful precision.  "I believed I had chosen a path opposite from what he'd intended.  Though lately I've thought differently."  For a moment, he paused to appreciate the neatness of his cuts, and then reached for his plate.

"Would Morinozuka-sama agree that I do not greatly resemble my father?"  
"In what sense, exactly?" the man hazarded.

"I don't look like him.  I don't speak like him."  He smiled at the two slices of cake on his plate.  "I don't share his Spartan tendencies.  Isn't this true?"  
Glancing up, Hunny could clearly see Morinozuka-sama seeking for some way to agree with him, without causing any offense.  Part of him wished this same level of tact could have been offered to Arai-kun instead, but first things first.

"In terms of the things Haninozuka-san has mentioned, I would say they are fair statements," the man finally said;  agreeing without committing himself, in a manner that would do an Ootori proud.

"And yet you know me for a Haninozuka anyway?" With the edge of his fork, Hunny tested the yielding springiness of the Angel Food, and the denser texture of the Lemon Poppyseed.  Both were perfect, and they smelled purely delightful.  

Another glance up showed him Morinozuka-san, poring over the question as though it hid a trick he couldn't see, like some deceptively simple riddle, where the quick answer was always the wrong one.

"Of course I'd know you for a Haninozuka," he finally shrugged.  "I've seen you grow up.  I was present in your house the night you were born."

"Ah, that's true," said Hunny.  He cut the corner off the slice of Lemon Poppyseed, and another off the Angel Food, then speared his fork through each.

"Suppose I tried to look more like my father," he said.  "That I spoke in his manner, and walked the way he walks, and dressed in the same style, and ate the same foods he prefers.  Would that make me more of a Haninozuka?"

While Morinozuka-sama considered this question inside and out as well, Hunny put the fork to his mouth, bit and savored sweetness and bliss;  the combined perfumes of lemon and vanilla and sugar melting across his tongue and suffusing his palate.  His eyes closed, and he held the fork poised in midair, briefly giving himself over to the simple, unutterable joy of cake.

Morinozuka-sama considerately waited until Hunny's rapture subsided, and he'd lowered his fork, before saying, "If Haninozuka-san refers to a certain episode in the past, regarding instructions from his father, I do recall it now."

"You know," Hunny told him.  "If he had explained what I was meant to learn, I would have understood easily.  But if the lesson had not been very difficult, I might have missed how important it was."  He reached for his teacup, and sipped to clear his palate.

"I had to try to fulfill my father's wishes--or what I believed his wishes were, and fail, and then choose a different direction.  Even after that, it was a long time before I understood my father had intended I should go that direction.  Won't you have some more tea?"

"Yes, thank you," said Morinozuka-sama, stepping forward and retrieving his teacup.

"You see," Hunny told him.  "My father meant for me to understand that I am Haninozuka, no matter what.  Whether I resemble him, or my brother, or not.  Whether I fit anyone else's idea of a Haninozuka, it is what I am nonetheless.  A good lesson for an heir, don't you think?"

"Hm," said Morinozuka-sama.  He pulled out the chair across from Hunny and sat.  Sipped at his tea, and then looked deeply into the cup.  Hunny took up his fork, and chose a bite of Angel Food, then a bite of Lemon Poppyseed.  They were just as good separately.

"What Haninozuka-san describes is an idea I had not previously considered."

Hunny thought that this time, Morinozuka-sama was searching for a way to disagree with him, without causing offense.  
"But?" he prompted, scraping a taste of icing off the Angel Food.

"Perhaps what you've implied is true for the Morinozuka as well.  I believe that's your intention, yes?  But since my son has forfeit his inheritance, on top of everything else, I can only conclude he does not wish to be Morinozuka at all."

Startled, Hunny halted with the fork halfway to his mouth.  "Takashi did what?"

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

"I offered up my inheritance, to my brother," said Takashi.  "I'd meant to negotiate a split.  But maybe I got carried away."

They were wandering slowly toward the far side of the rear courtyard, each with their hands in their pockets.  Arai gave Takashi a sidelong glance.  
"Y'know, before today, I wouldn't have thought you could get carried away."

"I apologize--," Takashi murmured for the third time, but Arai stopped him.  
"You don't have to.  I mean it.  I'm the one who should apologize, for barging in like that.  But--."  He trailed off, seeing Takashi had already subsided again, deep into his own thoughts.  Looking at the paving stones under their feet, looking at the high stone wall surrounding the courtyard.  Looking back toward the house, and then at the lone bare maple in the middle of the courtyard.

With a sinking feeling, Arai realized Takashi wasn't just staring around the place aimlessly.  He was no doubt marking each thing he saw, in his memory.  Taking stock of what he stood to lose, maybe.  This was why they were walking, instead of just sitting somewhere gratefully out of the line of fire, watching the dust settle and waiting for some verdict out of the library.

If he hadn't been already prepared somewhat, by Takashi's description of his father, and why the man was apt to be difficult, Arai imagined that encounter in the library would've been a lot more uncomfortable than it was.  Though it was pretty damned uncomfortable anyway, and not just because he'd blundered into a private family conversation he had no business being in on.  

Arai had seen Takashi intent and determined before.  He'd seen him somber, and even frustrated, but he'd never seen him angry.  Standing next to him in the library though, Arai sensed something turbulent and unpredictable simmering inside his friend, kept in check under a tightly sealed lid.  And while a small part of him was curious at finding an unexpected side to someone he'd thought he knew pretty well, he was also aware--in a way he'd honestly never been previously--that he was brushing shoulders with a man who'd been trained in fighting disciplines most his life, and who wielded deadly sharp weapons with incredible accuracy.

Somewhere in those tense minutes, with Takashi's dad working up a serious head of steam (while Takashi stood and ground his molars together), Arai had a disturbing epiphany.  

_That's why he doesn't want to fight with his dad.  Because the way he learned to fight, nobody walks away._   And maybe that made him the kind of person you'd want at your back in a tight spot, but Arai knew, because he knew his friend, that if Takashi were ever pushed to that kind of defense against family, or any of the very few people close to him, it would demolish him.

He had a feeling there had been a close call in that regard, too.  Takashi's dad had seemed determined to keep pushing at his son, as though making a fight out of it would make his accusations valid, or something.  There was no telling where things might have ended up, if Mitsukuni-san hadn't appeared when he did.  At best, Arai almost certainly would've been clearing out space in his room above the grocery, for an indefinite period.  As for the worst-case scenario, he didn't care to imagine that at all.

But the thing that bothered him the most, enough that he would really rather not dwell on it, was how awfully familiar it had all been.  Change the setting, change the specifics, trade the phrases "duty" and "honor" for "growing up" and "taking responsibility for yourself", and it could've been Arai's final argument with his own father, all over again.  

The only real difference, was that at the end of that particular argument, Arai had headed straight for the train station with his bags, and never looked back.  At least not more often than he could help, anyway.

They passed through the courtyard gate, and out into the pear orchard, Takashi in the lead and Arai following close by.  The sun was just starting to dip low in the afternoon sky, but it was still warm, even in the long shadows between the trees.  Takashi had told him once, that these trees were older than Hito and Sakura-san, and Arai had marveled at that.  

It seemed everywhere he'd been on this property, there was a feeling of deep-rooted history sleeping under the surface of things.  A hint of stories that hadn't been told in a hundred years, waiting to be remembered.  The more time he spent out here, the more he had this feeling, like the stories and the history were gradually rising to the surface somehow, waking up in stages, from a long hibernation.  And sometimes, he imagined that if he were only quiet and still enough, like Takashi was, that he might hear something--the land itself, or the trees, or the old stone walls--speak to him of legends that no one remembered anymore.

As they climbed the path up the hill (where Arai had suspected they'd been heading all along), he wondered what might become of the estate if Takashi left.  And more important, what might become of Takashi without this separate, secret world; its rolling hills and hidden paths, and all that soft empty sky overhead?

Takashi paused on the hilltop, as he always did, to take in the view.  Arai stopped a few steps lower on the path, looking up at his friend's solemn profile and wondering what would happen if history ever spoke, and no one was there to hear it.

"You belong to this place," he said softly.  Without taking his eyes off the distant foothills, Takashi nodded.  
"But your dad wouldn't understand that."

"No," Takashi agreed.  "He understands responsibility, and duty though.  If I honor the family history, he might understand that.  Eventually."

"You're not angry anymore?"

"Are you upset by the things he said?"  It took Arai a moment to catch on, that Takashi wasn't changing the subject.  His dark eyes met Arai's straight on, searching deep for the truth, and Arai recalled that Takashi hadn't been angry until his father started dropping those odd comments about 'farmers' sons' and 'commoners'.   

But Arai had only been startled by the vehemence behind those statements, and his sudden harsh recollection of another man striking out similarly.  A man accustomed to obedience without questions, cornered and fighting when too much had come into question.  Morinozuka-sama didn't take it any better than Arai's dad had, apparently.

Now, it seemed that whether Takashi stayed mad at his father depended on whether Arai had taken offense to those remarks.  If Takashi acting on his anger wasn't the last thing Arai ever wanted to see, he might have been genuinely warmed by the thought of someone caring that much about his feelings.  Arai still mattered to Takashi, even with the world of other problems he had to face.

"I'm not upset by that," he told Takashi.  "I think you were right, when you said he was afraid.  He was just--."  Arai sighed because really, this was way too familiar for his comfort.  

"Sometimes things get out of hand," he went on.  "People say things they don't mean, and maybe they don't even realize that it--." 

_...hurts_ , was on the tip of his tongue, before he shut his mouth and thought better of it.  That was just complicating things.  He'd been hurt almost a year ago, not today, and it hardly even bothered him anymore.  He was fine now, and Takashi had enough to worry about already.

He put his past behind him with a firm headshake.  "Anyway, I'm glad you didn't fight with him."

Takashi studied him a moment longer, curiosity flickering faintly in his expression, before he finally decided to agree. 

"So am I."

 

They wandered the crest of the hill, around the tea house, to the point overlooking the dense brittle tangle where the almond trees and plums had grown wild.  It was there that Takashi finally chose to sit, and Arai sprawled next to him, stretching out on his back in the dry yellow grass.  He stared up at the blank blue sky, wondering whether he'd gone numb from a day full of too many upsets and surprises, or if he was simply too tired and wrung out to worry over anything anymore.

There was a rustling in the grass nearby, and Arai turned his head to see Takashi stretching out next to him.

"Tired?" he asked.  
"Yeah."

He reached out his hand, and Takashi did the same, until their fingers touched and twined.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

After hearing Morinozuka-sama's version of his confrontation with Takashi, Hunny was quiet for a long while.  He picked at his cake, and tried to reconstruct the discussion as it might have gone from Takashi's point of view, thinking that--as was usually the case with disagreements--the truth probably lay somewhere between the father's perspective, and the son's.

As he sat thinking, his eye chanced on a faded blueprint that had been left on the table, a short distance off.  He looked more closely, until the abstract lines and angles resolved into something recognizable:  the floor plan of the summer house.  Curious, he leaned over and pulled the paper toward him, shifting a stack of books, slim and bound in dry dusty leather.

Morinozuka-sama, who'd been staring down the dregs of his tea, glanced up at the movement.  Seeing the objects of Hunny's attention, his expression darkened somewhat.

"I'm sorry," Hunny hesitated.  "Is it all right if I look at this?"

"It was all grandfather Ichigo's," the man shrugged.  "I doubt he'd mind.  Be my guest."

Beneath the floor plan, was a precisely drafted map of the estate, with notes on the property lines, and parcel measurements of the land.  It showed the main house, the courtyard and gardener's quarters, the stables, the well, and the main paths traversing the property.  Hunny realized the pool and pool house weren't on the map, and wondered if this had been drawn before they were built.

The papers were weighted down by the books, and Hunny reached for one, turned pages covered in long columns of neat script.  Though the characters were clear, the ink had the same faded quality as the blueprints, and his nose caught the faintly sweet odor of aged paper and binding.  At the bottom of the stack however, was something new.  A yellow legal pad, more than a hundred pages, covered densely in notes.

"Ah," he said quietly.  "Takashi's handwriting."  He was on the verge of setting the pad aside, in case it was something private, before recalling that Takashi had always kept his private things hidden very well.  When he left things out in the open, it was done for a reason.

The notes, Hunny quickly saw, referenced the map and the blueprints before him.  Scanning through, he saw other references mentioned.  

_\--Almanac/Spring 1937.  Plum orchard flooded.  Irrigation dredged to south aqueduct._  
 _\--Records/Fall 1943.  Rice crop failed.  Pears 282 bushels.  Apples 212.  Squash 2 acres.  Radish/soybeans/cucumbers/melon._  
 _\--Land Ledger 1939-40.  Cleared & graded cart road 5km east from main road.  Bridge over east aqueduct--surveyor map #44?  Erosion damage.  Need repair estimate._

The ledgers and records must be these books, Hunny thought.  And Takashi had been doing serious homework with it all.  His best subjects in school had been history and geography, but Hunny didn't think his cousin had been putting this much effort into an idle intellectual exercise.  More than anything, it looked like Takashi had been looking for clues to something.  That, or else....

( _...need repair estimate..._ )

Or else he was making plans?  Hunny frowned.  Something about that idea pinged strangely at his conscience, though he couldn't immediately say why.  He set the legal pad aside, and sat back in his seat, resting his chin on his steepled fingers.  He considered what Morinozuka-sama had said, about Takashi giving up his inheritance, to stay in Karuizawa.  By his description, Takashi was turning his back on the Tokyo house, and the rest of his family.  But Hunny wasn't convinced that was the case;  his impression was that Arai figured heavily into Takashi's reasons for staying.  After all, Arai had been clearly pulled into the discussion between Takashi and his father, Hunny had seen it for himself when he'd arrived.

But what if Takashi had other reasons for staying here?  Reasons Hunny and Morinozuka-sama knew nothing about?  Morinozuka-sama assumed Takashi was rebelling perhaps, and Hunny assumed his own separation from Takashi, and Arai's friendship were influencing him.  But supposing there was something else?  What if Takashi was willing to brave his father's censure because he'd found a real purpose here;  something in these maps and ledgers, that he wanted to invest himself into.  Something that would keep him--

A new possibility shifted into place, bringing Hunny's deductions to a standstill.  Things became very clear to him suddenly.

"Morinozuka-sama," he announced after a moment.  "I think I understand what Takashi wants to do."  He shook his head, a little ruefully.  "I think he's doing what I asked him to, a long time ago.  I didn't think he'd even remember."

Takashi's father gave him a confused, slightly wary look.  "Remember what?"

It wasn't much use if Hunny reached a conclusion by himself.  The important thing was that Takashi's father understand what Takashi's aims were, even if the explanation meant a detour through difficult territory for Hunny.  There was just no way around it, he thought, and sighed.

"The day before I left home, Takashi came to ask if I would reconsider my decision to go without him.  He'd already asked , several times.  And by then, if Haninozuka-sama had not said specifically I should travel on my own, I think I would have..."

It was the first time Hunny had attempted to explain this to anyone, and the grim heaviness of those final visits caught up to him more quickly than he'd expected.  He could not ever remember feeling worse, more terrible or more wrong, than in his last conversations with Takashi that autumn.  Telling him no, and no again, watching the light gradually going dimmer in his cousin's eyes; seeing Takashi's tall frame drawing in on itself every time he walked away, like a house sagging on collapsing foundations.  

"It was hard to keep turning him away.  But I couldn't change my plans, even for him."  His throat felt tight, and he stared down at his hands, fighting against the pricking sensation behind his eyes.  What his refusals had done to Takashi, then and afterward...Hunny had sworn to himself every day that first year, that he would never do that to anyone again.  Ever.  

To his credit, Morinozuka-sama remained still and attentive, until Hunny could go on.  
    
"The last time Takashi came to ask....I didn't answer him.  Instead, I made a request.  I asked him to find something he could care about, and put all of himself into.  I thought that would be the best thing for him.  Because that's what he does best, you know?" 

He raised a half-smile to the man across the table.  "Takashi cares better than anyone I've ever known."  He looked across at the plans and old records, and Takashi's pages of painstaking notes, taken over who knew how many winter days and nights.  "I think that's what all this means.  I'm almost sure of it."

Morinozuka-sama regarded him for a long while, somber and unreadable as a judge weighing a life sentence.  Then his gaze seemed to turn inward, and the heavy creases between his eyes deepened.  Hunny could only guess what thoughts were turning behind that hard-set mask;  his sole encouragement was that Takashi's father was thinking now, instead of respectfully disagreeing with him.  

He waited quietly, attentively, as Morinozuka-sama had done.  And in that quiet spell, the feather edge of an odd idea brushed his mind.  

For the first time, he was speaking to his cousin's father as one family leader to another.  Though he hadn't yet stepped into Haninozuka-sama's shoes officially, this discussion was--at its heart--truly a council between the masters of their two houses.  At this point it wouldn't have surprised Hunny in the slightest, to find that Haninozuka-sama had foreseen this lesson for him too.

Then with a pang, it struck him that he and Takashi would probably not have councils like this.  If Takashi didn't succeed his father, then all the other decisions that tied the families together--business interests, shared property, and all the mutual advising his father and Takashi's father had exchanged over the years--Hunny would presumably be negotiating with Satoshi instead.  And he liked Satoshi, very much.  The young man was energetic and bright, and after years of keeping Yasuchika in line, leading the Morinozuka family would be hardly any trouble at all for him.

But he wasn't Takashi, and a tiny sentimental part of Hunny twinged with regret over that.

Takashi's father shifted in his chair and sighed, drawing Hunny's attention back to the matter at hand.  
"So it is Haninozuka-san's belief, that my son is pursuing your instructions?"

"I think he's found something here he cares very much about," Hunny answered carefully.  "And I know he'll work hard for it."

Morinozuka-sama scowled at the ledgers on the table, his fierce dignity briefly ruffled by plain exasperation.    
"Farming."  He shook his head.  "What on earth does he know about farming?"

"I can't say," Hunny admitted.  He glanced toward the library door.  "Maybe we should ask him?"

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Leaving the library, they were greeted by a young maid in a crisp white apron.  
"Haninozuka-san, Morinozuka-sama," she announced, bowing to each of them in turn.  "Can I offer any assistance to the honored masters?"

Morinozuka-sama strode past, dismissing her in his characteristic brisk manner. "Not at the moment."  But Hunny paused and smiled.

"You're Kuki-chan, right?"  
The girl straightened abruptly, blinking; perhaps startled at being singled out.

"Y-yes.  Haninozuka-san is correct."  
"Sakura-san mentioned you," Hunny nodded.  "I thought that was a cute name.  And it suits you, too."

She ducked her head, cheeks going quickly pink.  "Haninozuka-san is too kind."

When Sakura-san had bustled him through the kitchen earlier, he'd caught a glimpse of this same girl dabbing her eyes furiously with a handkerchief, at the kitchen table.  He couldn't help wondering if the circumstance that had brought her to tears, was at all related to the crisis he'd walked into in the library, moments later.  However, with Morinozuka-sama waiting just a few steps away, he had no chance of finding out.  And perhaps it was unimportant;  the young maid looked perfectly all right now.

"Kuki-chan," he said, as a new idea occurred to him, "have you seen Takashi around?  Morinozuka-sama and I were on our way to talk to him."  He chuckled a little.  "But I just realized, we don't know where he is."

"Ah," the girl perked up, clearly eager to be of some help.  "I saw Takashi-sama going with--."  She halted, darting a cautious glance at Morinozuka-sama's back, and corrected herself.  "....Going to the courtyard earlier."

Hunny sincerely hoped they hadn't smuggled Arai-kun out of the house as awkwardly as Kuki-chan had just omitted him from her statement.  For an instant, he considered bringing Takashi's friend into the conversation, just to prove that there was nothing wrong with it.  But doing so in Morinozuka-sama's presence would reflect poorly on Kuki-chan's credibility, and perhaps she had her own reasons for not mentioning the young man.

"So we'd find him in the courtyard, you think?" he asked.

"Oh."  Kuki-chan frowned unexpectedly.  "So sorry.  Takashi-sama usually walks past the courtyard.  Does Haninozuka-sama know the orchard behind the courtyard?"

"Where the pear trees are?"  Hunny hadn't seen the pear orchard in ages, but he faintly remembered Takashi climbing for pears, so many years ago it seemed like another lifetime.

"Yes, exactly," Kuki-chan nodded brightly.  
"Thank you," Hunny smiled in return.  "You've been very helpful."

Before he could move forward however, the girl shook her head.  "Begging your pardon, Haninozuka-san.  But I doubt Takashi-sama stayed in the pear orchard.  If you don't see him, perhaps try the path up the hill."

"And?" asked Hunny, sensing a pattern.  
"He's probably at the top of the hill."  
"You're sure?"

"Ah....," the girl hesitated, and Hunny fought a sudden unaccountable urge to giggle.  "Unless he's at the pool house  But usually when Takashi-sama goes there, he takes the path from the residence wing.  Does Haninozuka-san know that path?"

"Yes.  If Takashi isn't at the top of the hill, we'll try the pool house.  Otherwise, we can wait for him to return.  Thank you, Kuki-chan."

"I'm honored to be of help to Haninozuka-san, and Morinozuka-sama," she recited gravely.  "I hope the gentlemen enjoy a pleasant walk outside."

 

*  *  *  *  *


	8. Chapter 8

Mori sat up at the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path, and the high lilt of his cousin's voice, exclaiming over the view.  Moments later, Arai caught the sound as well, and stirred.

"We have company."  
"Hm."

They rose together, brushing grass and wrinkles from their clothes.  Mori followed the pace of the walkers' approach with one ear, while trying--despite the tightening of his overworked nerves--to muster his resolve one final time.  

He spared a last glance toward the hills and fields, where the sun would be setting soon, knowing that this would be it.  This strife over his future must be put to rest, before the day ended.   He simply didn't have it in him, to endure another confrontation after this.  Not tomorrow, perhaps not ever.  

This would be his last chance to find the words that might reach his father.  And to be honest, after that last encounter, Mori felt hopelessly ill-equipped for the task.  But there was no other choice.

He drew in a long breath, digging deep for the readiness to walk into the fray once more.

"Hey."  Arai's hand squeezed his shoulder, and Mori turned (hearing the footsteps slowing at the crest of the hill, feeling his heart give an extra kick in his chest).

"You're not alone, okay?"

" _Look, Morinozuka-sama,_ " called Mitsukuni.  " _You can see all the way to the mountains from here._ "

Arai's hands grasped both his shoulders, and he looked Mori squarely in the eye.  
"Don't think about falling.  I won't let you."

Mori stilled, those words sinking in hard.  He thought on all the times Arai had listened, and struggled, and taken his lessons to heart.  And just look at him now....

Between one breath and the next, he experienced a quick culmination of keen desire and absolute clarity, in a hard double-punch. 

It wasn't necessary, to defend what he wanted.  Not to his father, or anyone else.  All he had to do was stand, and be true.  Even if he lost the right to walk on his great-grandfather's land, even if he never saw this place tended and lush with summer promise, even if he never watched another sunset from the teahouse steps, he would still have what was most important.  His freedom, his determination, and the untarnished faith of this young man who had never once mistaken him for someone he wasn't, and who now believed in him wholeheartedly.

" _I haven't come here in years,_ " his father was saying.  " _It isn't at all like I remember._ "

There was no reason to strive over this.  Mori knew he could only lose what he willingly surrendered, and as for what was truly his, he couldn't lose it if he tried.

" _There's the teahouse,_ " Mitsukuni pointed out.  " _Just like Kuki-chan said._ "

His cousin was doing his best to give warning of their approach, Mori realized.  He'd have to thank him for that, later on.

"Don't go anywhere," he told Arai quietly.  "This won't take long."  
"Like hell," the young man answered, giving him an unexpectedly sharp-edged grin.  "I'm going wherever you go."

Mori stared at him for a long moment, seeing that for the first time, Arai wasn't asking permission, or waiting for Mori to welcome him along.  He was determined, fully confident of his footing, and Mori understood that somewhere in the course of the day's upheavals, remarkable changes had occurred for them both. 

They could go forward, he realized.  What, or where, or how didn't matter.  They could go forward together, and do anything, starting right now.

"Good," he finally nodded, then squared his shoulders and turned smartly for the corner of the tea house, onto the path where his father and his cousin, and their future stood waiting.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Hunny counted their four shadows, thin and long across the yellowed grass.  Takashi and Arai-kun on one side of the path, he and Morinozuka-sama on the other.  The overall mood was solemn, subdued, in the fading afternoon light.  After a glance to acknowledge his son, Morinozuka-sama had stared out over the fields and trees for some time, gathering his thoughts.

"I didn't think it would look this neglected."  

To Hunny, it only looked like open, empty landscape.  The sort you could see out any train or car window on a trip through the countryside.  Dead weeds and bare trees, and the occasional stone wall, gone to rubble with age, dividing winter-bleached pastures.  He wondered what memories Morinozuka-sama had to compare this to.

"When were you last up here?" he asked.

"After Grandfather's funeral.  We brought his ashes here, in accordance with his will."  Slowly, his attention turned toward the tea house.   

"My father called this Ichigo's Folly.  While the family was in Tokyo rebuilding, after the war and the earthquake, everyone knew Grandfather spent most of his time up here.  Even though our main house was destroyed, and the Haninozuka compound was leveled."

"Your father had to take all the responsibility," concluded Hunny, understanding at last.  "For his own home, and ours too."  He glanced over to catch  Takashi's eye, hoping his cousin was listening carefully.  Takashi caught the look and nodded;  even Arai, standing quietly at his side, seemed intent on the conversation.

"It wasn't only that," said Morinozuka-sama.  "The country was modernizing.  Everyone was letting go of the old values, our history.  All that we had stood for was being forgotten elsewhere.  If we did not restore our homes, hold fast to our beliefs, we could no longer count ourselves worthy of our names."

"But we did forget."  Takashi had turned, looking off the edge of the hill into a valley full of densely tangled undergrowth.  "This was where we began.  This was our first home, and we let it go to ruin."  There was no accusation in his slow, measured tone.  He was merely stating an obvious conclusion.  But Morinozuka-sama turned a shadowed look at his son's back, as if readying himself for more disagreement.

Quickly, Hunny took a step between them.  "These aren't the same hard times as before.  You don't have to choose one house or the other to care about.  And Morinozuka-sama has two strong sons, who love their family very much.  He is a lucky man, I think."

Takashi's father subsided, with the troubled air of a man who didn't trust the few choices he had.  The silence drew out again, and then Takashi offered his concluding point.

"Our name is on this land.  The town of Karuizawa remembers us, for what Ichigo-sama did here.  Are we worthy of our history, if this is how we leave it?"

Hunny watched his cousin, standing calm and tall at the edge of the hill.  There was nothing in his bearing, or his expression that was any different from the person Hunny had known all his life.  And yet Takashi  _was_ different, he realized, in an important, fundamental way.  

This was not the same young man back at school, who could hardly abide crowded rooms, or who could only offer silent glances and tentative gestures when he starved for equal companionship.  This probably wasn't even the same young man who'd lost most of what was dear and familiar to him, eighteen months back.  But Hunny had a feeling that the man he was looking at was here precisely because of all those things.

Hunny knew that he was different too, after his experiences abroad, and all that he'd learned on his own.  And as he glanced around their small group, he wondered if maybe they were all here now, because of what they'd been through, and what they'd learned.  Arai-kun, Morinozuka-sama, Takashi, and himself.

_We are more than our names or our families,_  he thought.  This is what he should tell his father, when he finally went home.   _We are everything that touches our lives.  We're our lessons, and our losses, and our friendships.  Accidents and mistakes.  And our triumphs, too.  Everything we love, and hate, and ignore.  We are even the things we've forgotten.  It's all part of us._

Morinozuka-sama gave a heavy, final-sounding sigh.

"I haven't paid my respects to Grandfather.  The family altar isn't where it used to be."  
Slowly, Takashi turned and met his father's eyes.

"Someone moved it here.  I can show you."

"Hm."  Morinozuka-sama looked impassively at the tea house, and then gave only a fraction of a nod.  But Hunny sensed a considerable mustering of courage behind that gesture.  And he was certain he saw it in Takashi too, leading his father up the teahouse steps, ducking to pass under the low doorway.  That was Morinozuka courage, through and through;  facing difficult obstacles directly, and never wasting words, when brave action was most necessary.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Hunny stood slightly awestruck for several seconds afterward, until Arai crossed the path toward him, his hands in his pockets, wearing a faint thoughtful frown.  
"Do you think they'll work it out, Mitsukuni-san?"

"I think they both want to now," Hunny allowed.  "And I know they're capable of it."

"He really loves this place.  And everyone here....we all care about him.  Even Sakura-san, and the gardener, and Kuki-chan, they look out for him.  He might not know how much, but he's--he makes people want to do their best for him, y'know?  He doesn't tell anybody what to do, they just want to."

Hunny looked at Arai, toeing the gravel with his boot, realizing that for all this young man's innocence and uncertainty, Takashi could not have found anyone more perfect.  
"Thank you," he said.

Arai glanced up, surprised.  "For what?"  
"I always hoped that someone else would understand that, about Takashi.  I'm very glad you told me."

"Oh.  Well it's--."  He hesitated a moment, then shrugged.  "You're welcome."  Glancing back toward the teahouse, he said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"How did you know to come here?  I mean, it wasn't just a coincidence, was it?"  
Hunny chuckled.  "Well it's like you said, Arai-kun.  Everyone here cares about Takashi."

The young man gazed at him curiously, before looking past Hunny's shoulder, to the south side of the hill, where the main house was visible.  Then his eyes widened in understanding.  
"Ah.  Then it was--"

"Shh," Hunny cautioned, putting his finger to his lips, grinning.  "Everyone knows the house staff never interferes in family business."  He winked.  "That way no one gets in trouble."

Arai took a moment to comprehend this, and then nodded.  "I see."

"So."  Hunny strolled a short distance, to the edge of the hill.  "What do you and Takashi have planned here?"

 

*  *  *  *  *


	9. Chapter 9

At some recent point, likely when Sakura had been too busy to notice, someone had stolen their housemaid and replaced her with a very different person.

"Be careful in the laundry room, Sakura-san," the girl announced, marching briskly through the kitchen with an armload of towels.  "I'm heating up the presser for Haninozuka-san's laundry."

"The beds are made already?" asked Sakura.  
"Yes, and the rooms have been swept and aired."  
"What about the breakfast room?"

"Ah, Morinozuka-sama is having coffee still.  But the baths are clean, and I've dusted the library..."  She continued through the door to the dining room, reciting details Sakura had previously despaired of the girl ever remembering on her own.

After a long stare at the door, Sakura shook her head, and went on polishing the teacups.  This new, purposeful Kuki-chan was peculiar, but at least she was useful.  The girl had volunteered to stay overnight, since they had extra guests, and her activity had been more or less constant since dawn.  

Sakura couldn't imagine what had inspired such a change, but she herself had been to busy to question it.  Perhaps they should have had guests to stay sooner, she thought.

Moments later, Kuki-chan bustled back through with the laundry basket.  "Does Haninozuka-san like his shirts starched?" she asked in passing.

"Light starch on the collars," Sakura provided automatically.  Then, unable to help herself, she followed the girl to the laundry room.  Watched her hang the trousers, and fold the socks, and ready a small, neat blazer for the steamer.

"Haninozuka-san must have a very good tailor," the girl commented, buttoning the jacket cuffs.  "You don't often see clothing this well made, around here."  She paused, considering.  "We have some lavender water, I could use on his handkerchiefs.  Do you think he would like that?"

Sakura might have commented how fortunate it was, that their maid approved of the Haninozuka heir and his wardrobe, but frankly it was all too strange for her.  
"I'm sure regular water will be sufficient," she answered, and retreated to finish the dishes.

 

*  *  *  *  *

It was nearing lunchtime, when she caught the familiar rumble of the grocery truck, pulling up the delivery drive.  Shortly after, she opened the door to Arai-kun, who was laden with a great number of white boxes, tied with twine.

"Special delivery," he grinned, answering her curious look.  "The bakery asked me to say thanks to Mitsukuni-san for his business, and to call if he's staying much longer, so they can double their flour stock."

"Oh thank goodness."  Sakura held the door so the young man could pass through.  "I was worried the order wouldn't arrive in time."

"Yeah, I guess they were running behind. " Arai kicked off his shoes in the pantry, carefully balancing the boxes as he spoke. "The manager offered to handle our local deliveries, if I'd bring these out.  Kitchen table okay?" 

"Yes, by all means."

"One of these goes in the freezer, it's noted on top of the box--."  Arai was unstacking the parcels, just as Kuki-chan entered from the dining area.  
"Ah, Haninozuka-san's cakes are here?  Very good."

"Yeah, I bundled them with twine though.  You have any scissors I could borrow?"  
"Of course!  I'll get them right away."  Kuki-chan hurried back to the pantry, while Sakura moved to make room in the freezer.

Arai-kun listened to the maid dig energetically through drawers and cabinets, looking bemused.    
"Busy morning here, too?"

"Not terribly.  Kuki-chan is making a special effort, on behalf of the young master Haninozuka.  She's been quite prompt, where his needs are concerned." Sakura was content to let a look convey her unspoken opinion on this development, and Arai bit back a grin at her expression.  

"Well, ah.  It's good to find an incentive to work hard, right?"  
"One can't complain, I suppose," she sighed, with a skeptical glance at the pantry.

"Here they are!" The girl emerged beaming, brandishing the scissors like a prize.  
"Thanks," said Arai, stepping aside to let her attack the twine.

"I'm sure we can manage things from here," Sakura began, turning back to the freezer, "if Arai-kun wishes to--"  
"Careful," Arai warned, when Kuki-chan fumbled the scissors in her haste.  They bounced off the kitchen table, and clattered to the floor.

"Clumsy," the girl chastened herself, as Arai knelt for a quick retrieval.

Just as Sakura was shaking her head at the fuss, there came a muffled pop;  Arai gasped and collapsed awkwardly to the floor, catching himself on his hands. Kuki-chan gave a little shriek, and dropped next to him, and Sakura moved immediately to help.

"Is Arai-san hurt?  Oh, I'm so sorry."  
"No it's fine, it's okay."  Arai shook his head, already reaching up for the table edge, and catching a quick breath.  "Surprised me, that's all."

"Shouldn't you sit still?"  Sakura cautioned, recalling the pain the boy had been in some months ago, after he'd fallen outside.  "I can get some ice, and call for Bocchama--"

"That's too much trouble.  I'm really all right."  Before either Sakura or Kuki-chan could argue, Arai clambered back to his feet--though he kept a hand on the table edge, just in case, Sakura noticed.

"See," he smiled, and handed the scissors back to Kuki-chan.  "Nothing to worry about."  
Sakura eyed him doubtfully  "Are you quite certain you aren't hurt?"

"Positive," Arai nodded.  "Same thing happened just the other day, down at the pool house.  My knee just gets a little funny when the--."  He paused, with a suddenly peculiar expression.   "....When the weather changes.  Sakura-san, where's Takashi right now?"

"Out, at the pool house.  With young master Haninozuka, I believe?"  Sakura didn't think Arai-kun had hit his head, but he wasn't entirely making sense either, and it flustered her.  "Are you certain you're okay?  Should I send someone to bring him in?"

"I'll go," Kuki-chan volunteered.  "It was my fault, after all, that--"  
But Arai's quick, disarming smile silenced her.  "Don't worry about it, I'll go find him."  He stepped away from the table, flexed both knees cautiously, and nodded to himself, satisfied.  "I think I might have good news for him."

Before Sakura could suggest he take the shortcut through the residence wing, the young man was off and out the pantry door, leaving both women looking to each other, mystified.

"Should I follow him, Sakura-san?  Just in case?"  
It probably wasn't a bad idea, but Sakura stood indecisive, still piecing together what Arai-kun had said.  What was so important about the weather?  It had nothing to do with....

Oh.

"Have you seen Hito about this morning?" she asked Kuki-chan.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

"I forgot how quiet it is out here," Mitsukuni remarked.  He sat crosslegged in the pool house doorway, watching Mori sweep.  "You remember how we used to stretch in the afternoon, down by the pool?"

"You always fell asleep," Mori recalled, whisking a stray dead leaf off the top step.  
"It was peaceful," his cousin shrugged.  "Our summer house had all the karate and judo classes.  I could hardly ever nap there."

"True," said Mori.  
"Yasuchika liked it though.  He could train all day."

"Yes."  Mori paused his sweeping, as a question occurred to him.  "Did you train when you were away?"

"Most places I did.  Father asked me to visit certain doujos, and I was invited to some others.  No matches, just demonstrations."  
Mori smiled.  "No one wanted to challenge a Haninozuka?"

"I guess not," Mitsukuni sighed.  "I found a few partners, but most of them weren't prepared enough."  
"You'll enjoy going home, then."

"Yes.  It will be good to go home."  He stretched his legs out, and sat back on his hands.  Mori descended the steps, and set his broom to work on the stone pathway that wound around the pool, toward the gap in the hedge.  A sudden breeze ruffled his hair, and he kicked that same dead leaf away from his shoe, watched it tumble across the path.  Then he stopped, and sniffed the air.

Mitsukuni was asking something about the pool, but Mori only half-heard.  There had been a change in their surroundings; invisible, and it nagged vaguely at his senses.

"Sorry," he said, glancing up at the sky.  "What was that?"  Was it his imagination, or were those high wispy clouds gathering thicker than before?

"I was just wondering if you'll fill up the pool again, this summer.  I've never seen it empty before."

"Oh."  He looked down at the empty white concrete, scattered at the bottom with clumps of earth and leaf litter.  "Probably.  Have to clean it first, though."  He'd consider doing it himself, but suspected that special equipment was involved in the process, somehow.  Better ask Hito about that.

Now the air was still.  But it seemed to Mori an unquiet, unsettling sort of stillness.  Like something was crouched just beyond his vision, waiting to spring out.  He felt he should be able to identify this mysterious tension, but he couldn't, quite.  His skin prickled, and he rubbed distractedly at one arm.

The change wasn't lost on his cousin.  "What is it, Takashi?"  
Mori frowned.   _I wish I knew,_ he was about to say.  But then the hedge rustled and he jumped.

"Ow.  Damn leaves are sharp." Arai was a welcome sight, emerging from the gap in the foliage, but Mori was less than comforted when he saw the unmistakable hitch in the young man's gait.  The broom fell by the wayside somewhere; Mori barely skirted the pool edge in his thoughtless rush, and fetched up at Arai's elbow, more winded than the exercise probably warranted.

"What happened?  Did you fall?" he asked, as Arai took a halting step backwards, hands raised to fend off a collision and speaking hurriedly.

"It's nothing to worry about, I'm good!  Listen, I think--"  
"You're limping again," Mori declared, because Arai always brushed off his own discomfort until it was pointed out directly.

"Yeah, I know."  For no reason Mori could comprehend, the young man's face lit up with an irresistible grin.  "If you'd let me explain...."  He dug in his heels against Mori's attempts to steer him toward the stone bench near the hedge, chuckling.  "Takashi, stop a second."  He caught Mori's hand and grasped it firmly.  "I think this heat wave is almost over.  My knee's been on fire for two hours, and I've hardly done anything today."

The implications filtered gradually past Mori's concern, and he drew back slightly.  As if on cue, the breeze kicked up again, worrying a squeak out of the rusted weather vane atop the stables.  It seemed the wind was changing direction again.

Arai ducked past his shoulder.  "Hi, Mitsukuni-san," he waved, still grinning.  "Sorry if I interrupted you guys."  
"What's going on?" Mitsukuni asked, from the porch railing.  "Did you have an accident, Arai-kun?"  
"Nah.  I just came to let Takashi know he doesn't have to worry about his trees anymore."

"His trees?" Mitsukuni asked.  
"Oh, damn." Arai froze and turned a sudden look of chagrin on Mori.  "I didn't even think to ask.  You and your dad.  You didn't...."

Mori had ended up spending several hours with his father the night before, in what could best be described as cautious negotiating, punctuated by lengthy, judicious silences.  Mitsukuni had kept Arai company, but in the end, Arai had to return to town before the discussion was finished.

"We came to a....probationary agreement," Mori provided.

"Er--come again?"  
Mori looked toward the pool house steps.  "Let's sit, and I'll explain."

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

"My father wants to put off decisions about the family inheritance until Satoshi graduates from Ouran.  We agreed that he should concentrate on his studies for the next few months, and then meet again this summer, to talk with him about succeeding as family head."

Arai nodded thoughtfully.  "That makes sense.  But...."  He frowned.  "That really changes your plans, doesn't it?"

"Mostly,"  Mori agreed.  "But my father has consented to my staying here, until we talk to Satoshi."  He paused.  "With some conditions."

Arai looked doubtful.  "Conditions?"

"He's asked me to arrange for surveys and inspections of the property.  I would've done it anyway, but he wants to see a full estimate of the costs and labor required to make the estate fully operational.  The irrigation repairs, grading the field roads, replacing the fences, and rebuilding the aqueduct."

"All at once?" Arai boggled.  "But that's like, a couple years of work, at least."  
"He suggested I write out a five-year plan, beginning with restoration."

"So....I'm not sure I get it.  You were going to do the repair work eventually, anyway.  And.  I mean, why go to the trouble of a five-year plan when you don't even know if your brother wants to--."  He faltered in mild embarrassment.  "Sorry.  It just seems confusing."

"I think," Mitsukuni offered, "that Morinozuka-sama wants to know that Takashi is serious.  And that he understands how much work he's in for."

"The work needs to be done," Mori put in.  "The orchards survived this long because Hito jury-rigged an old well.  But the water won't last forever, and it might not support extra crops through a dry summer.  If the main aqueduct was fixed, we wouldn't have to worry."

"But for now, what happens after you do all the surveys and estimates, and stuff?"  Arai asked.

"We talk to Satoshi.  And after that," he shrugged.  "We'll see."

Arai sat pensive for several moments, leaning back against the railing post.  He rubbed absently at his left leg, staring at a knot in the wood on the top step.

"There won't be any planting this year, then," he finally said.  "But you definitely can stay until summer."  He glanced up, and for a second, Mori thought he spied something discomforting, in his friend's eyes.  A shadowy, ambivalent expression he'd never seen.  But before he was quite certain of it, the look gave way beneath a smile.  

"And that's good," Arai decided, sounding sufficiently encouraged that Mori figured he must have imagined the thing before.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

By mid-afternoon, the earlier errant breezes had risen into strong, steady gusts from the northeast.  Mori took a quick precautionary hike up to the teahouse, to secure the outer shutters in case of storm, and returned to find Arai and Mitsukuni cheerfully carting stacks of firewood from the shed behind the gardener's quarters, to the library.  Sakura-san followed in their wake with a dustpan and whisk broom, holding forth in some detail over the irregularity of respected guests performing menial chores.

Mori fell to the rear of the procession, intrigued by the odd coziness of the scene;  Mitsukuni and Arai snickering like mischievous children, and his elderly housekeeper fussing conscientiously after them, just as she had done when Mori and his cousin actually were children under her supervision.

"...and you, young man," she went on, leveling her dustpan at Arai.  "Traipsing across the property since you arrived, when you ought to be resting."  
"I promise I don't need to rest, Sakura-san," he replied over his shoulder.  "The knee is going to bug me whether I stand or sit.  It's really not so bad, if I keep moving."

"This will be the last load, okay?" Mitsukuni placated.  "Everything will be ready for a nice fire when it gets cold, and we can sit down and enjoy some cake."

"Wouldn't the young master prefer his lunch?"  Sakura-san asked, and Mitsukuni checked himself mid-stride.  
"Oh.  Is there no cake left?"

"Of course, and I am all too happy to serve it," Sakura-san assured him.  "I merely thought everyone would enjoy lunch first."  
"Wonderful," the young man beamed, marching forward once more.  "We can have lunch, and cake."

Arai chuckled and shook his head, leading the way into the library.  Mori himself smiled, thinking a bit wistfully how quiet things would be, when Mitsukuni left for home.

"I take it everyone's heard the weather report, already."  Mori turned to see his father approaching, turning an inquiring eye on Mitsukuni and his armload of firewood.

"No, not yet," Mori admitted.  He'd meant to put on the kitchen radio when he'd come in, but had gotten sidetracked first by Kuki-chan, bustling from the laundry room in a flurry of spare quilts, and then by the wood-hauling parade down the main corridor.

Morinozuka-sama frowned curiously, and Mori wondered if it was worth explaining how he'd been forewarned by Arai, and his weathervane knee.  But the man apparently chose, in his usual decisive fashion, to dismiss the strange coincidence.  
"They're predicting a storm front moving into the area," he said.  "Snow, up to four inches, starting tomorrow afternoon."

The news garnered varied reactions among the group.  Mori's first impulse was a breath of relief, at confirmation that the weather was returning to normal.  But Sakura-san gasped.

"Four inches?  The roads could be closed for days."  
From within the library, Arai made a noise like vindication.  "Hah.  I knew it was gonna be a doozy."  
"...I'll have to check the pantry, and find out whether the maid can stay on through the week," Sakura fretted to herself.

At the threshold of the library, Mitsukuni sighed.  "I guess that means we should leave soon."

"That was going to be my suggestion," Mori's father told him, sounding nearly apologetic.  "I was about to arrange a car for first thing tomorrow morning.  Haninozuka-san is welcome to accompany me back to Tokyo.  That is, unless you'd planned to stay longer....?"

Mitsukuni shook his head.  "I'm expected home day after tomorrow.  It's better if I'm early, rather than late."

"The pantry....," came Arai's murmur.  "The grocery is gonna get cleaned out today."  He peeked past Mitsukuni at the assembled group, and then catching sight of the wood, said, "Here, let me get that."

"Thank you."  Once unburdened, Mitsukuni turned to Mori.  "I'm sorry.  I wish we had a little more time."

"But you can come back," Mori suggested.  
"Maybe not for awhile.  But yes."  Mitsukuni considered and then smiled.  "And you can always come visit me."

Feeling self-conscious under his father's eye, Mori offered a subdued,  "Of course."   Wondering how long it would be, before the man started reminding him what he'd agreed to.

"Well," Mitsukuni drew himself up decisively.  "We may as well enjoy the rest of the day, right?  Who wants to share cake with me?"

"Lunch," Sakura-san coughed, discreetly.

"Yes, that too," nodded Mitsukuni, as one granting an indulgence.  "Arai-kun?" he called, over his shoulder.  "Won't you come have cake--and, ah--lunch with us too?"

At first there was no answer.  Mitsukuni cast a quick frown toward Mori, and turned in the doorway.

"Arai--?"  
"--Sorry, just a second," Arai called.  "Made kind of a mess with the wood chips in here."

That voice sounded off-key to Mori's ear, and he stepped forward.  "You go ahead," he told his cousin, adding telepathically,   _And take the others with you._   "I'll take care of it."

Mitsukuni had always been adept at reading Mori's unspoken hints, and thankfully that hadn't changed.

 

*  *  *  *  * 


	10. Chapter 10

"Everything all right?" Mori asked, sliding the door panel half-shut behind him.

Arai rose from the hearth, brushing off his jeans.  "Yeah.  Just thought I'd get this ready to light for you."  He checked the door, and dropped his tone.  "Your dad doesn't seem that comfortable with me hanging around--and I don't mind," he quickly pre-empted, catching Mori's wince.  "Staying out of his way, I mean, if makes things easier.  And I can already tell you want to apologize, but you really don't have to."

Mori shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged;  guilty as charged.

"I should head back to town," Arai sighed.  "The store is gonna be swamped with half the population stocking up, once they hear the weather report.  But I wanted--."  With a second quick glance toward the door, he crossed to Mori.  Grabbed him by the arms, and pressed a hurried kiss against his cheek.

"There.  I didn't do that before, and I wanted to."  He stepped back to a respectable distance, color rising in his cheeks, and Mori could hardly help himself.  

"They're all in the dining room now," he murmured, moving in and pulling Arai into a proper embrace.  
"Yeah, and Kuki-chan was definitely in the kitchen last time," Arai muttered wryly into his shoulder.  But he brought his arms around Mori all the same, and held on.

"I'm so glad you're staying." The tight, fierce whisper came unexpectedly, punctuated by fingers gripping Mori's ribs.  "I couldn't even think about what I'd....if you weren't here.  If you had to give this place up, I'd hate that.  But Takashi.  If I couldn't see you anymore...."

"Don't.  Shh."  Mori felt it in his arms, against his chest;  their fears hadn't come to pass, yet Arai's whole posture was braced for impact.  He was like a spring too tightly wound, and starting to slip.  How long had he been in this state?  And how had Mori failed to notice?

"That scared me the worst." Arai had his forehead pressed to Mori's shoulder, and his voice sounded raw.  "Having to go back to what it was like, before, by myself.  I know it sounds selfish, but--"

"You don't have to," Mori urged, pulling him closer, kneading his hands against the tension in Arai's shoulders, willing it to release.  He wished he could reach the hurt twisting beneath the surface of that voice as readily, because it was burrowing under his own skin now, and gouging at him.

"It was really hard, back then."  

Then after a long beat and a deep breath, all Arai's strained edges and angles slackened.  Mori had never been close enough to someone to actually feel the fight go out of them, as the saying went, but was sure he recognized something similar here.

Still, just to be certain, he said, "I had no intention of leaving.  Even if we had to share your room over the grocery, like you said.  I wanted to stay."

Arai's shoulders quivered, his spine tensed, and for one bewildering instant, Mori feared he'd said the wrong thing.  But then a chuckle reached him, rusty-sounding and muffled by his shirt.

"You say that now.  But you'd miss this nice big fireplace, and the central heat.  We just make do with kotatsu in the main room.  The rest of the place is freezing."

"Hm," Mori sniffed, to hide his massive, weak-kneed relief.  "Try staying in the residence wing when it's ice outside.  You can see your breath in the rooms."

Arai drew back and eyed him, still chuckling.  He looked drained, careworn, and yet for some reason, more honestly happy than before.  And Mori--who until that very moment, hadn't realized how terribly he'd missed their companionable joking, and Arai's laughter--understood just how he felt.

He stepped to the side, bringing one arm over Arai's shoulders.  "Mitsukuni will want to see you before you go.  I can keep my father occupied, for that long."  
"You sure that's all right?  I don't want to interrupt their lunch."

"Mitsukuni won't mind.  He'll try to send you home with cake, though."  
"Seems kinda funny, considering I brought it out."

"It's easiest just to humor him," Mori assured him.  "It's what I always did."

 

Yes, he thought.  He'd missed Arai's laughter very much.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

His comment about the cold was prophetic, of course.  The wind gusted and moaned against the eaves all night, and the temperature dropped to single digits.  Not long after dawn, Mori decided it was pointless to shiver when he could be having hot coffee in a warm kitchen, and so crawled from bed and dressed accordingly.  

He stepped out into the hall at the same time as his apparently like-minded father, both men pausing for a brief moment of uncanny recognition.  Morinozuka-sama was dressed in layers;  black wool coat over his sweater, black scarf tucked around his neck.  He blew on his cupped hands and nodded to Mori, who wore a turtleneck under a cardigan, under an old corduroy jacket with elbow patches which he had never once worn in public and never intended to.  Mori slid the door to his suite shut, buried his own cold hands in the pockets of his flannel-lined trousers, and nodded back.

 

To Mori's great gratitude, Sakura-san appeared with the coffee tray the moment he and his father entered the breakfast room.  However his father ruined the effect somewhat, asking whether they might take their coffee in the master study instead.

"There are some things I'd like to go over before I leave," Morinozuka-sama explained.  "It shouldn't take long."

Knowing it would be extremely poor form to sigh, Mori simply took the tray from his housekeeper, who bowed and promised him hot rolls soon.  He forgot all about the rolls though, in the conference that ensued.

 

"It occurs to me that we have yet to discuss funding for your project here."  His father had tugged his coat and scarf off, unnecessary in the warmer part of the house, and draped them over the back of the venerable leather chair behind his desk.

Mori sat in the chair opposite, his fingers thawing around his coffee mug.  Through the windows behind his father's seat, he could see the courtyard; bare monochrome under a flat leaden sky.

"I'd planned to withdraw from my trust fund for capital," he explained.  "And reimburse it from sales profits."  
Morinozuka-sama weighed this information with an impartial, "Hm."  Set his own coffee mug down on the desk blotter, and reached into his pocket, withdrawing a set of keys.

Mori sipped coffee, and watched his father cross to the wall safe adjacent.  
"While I can certainly think of less worthy uses for your trust," the man said, unlocking the safe and withdrawing a stack of bound folders, "it would be more prudent to leave it intact.  Particularly since there are other means available."

 

He turned and met Mori's curious frown, as though he'd anticipated it.  "You didn't know about the maintenance fund.  Grandfather established it, of course, for upkeep and improvements to the estate.  Needless to say, it's hardly been used in ten years, and the interest is sizable."  He fingered through the folders, withdrawing one and setting the rest aside.

"This was quite a source of contention, in the past.  Ichigo's terms made the fund inaccessible for any purpose except this property's maintenance, and the fund managers have executive approval over every disbursement."  Handing the folder across to Mori, he added, "These are the original documents, with the terms.  It was co-written by the fund's first manager, which you might find interesting."

Mori flipped open the folder and scanned down the page.  Saw Morinozuka Ichigo's signature, familiar under the long paragraphs of legalese, and another name he recognized.

"Ootori," he murmured, needing no further explanation as to why the fund was never repurposed, no matter how determined Ichigo's son had likely been, to put it to use in Tokyo.  The Ootori he'd known in high school had been a master of watertight contracts, too.  Brilliant, efficient Kyouya, premeditating contingencies for practically every circumstance, behind his cool gaze.  For the first time in quite a while, Mori wondered how Kyouya was doing.  Mitsukuni probably knew.

"Then I can apply to this fund, for the restoration?" Mori confirmed.

"That would be my recommendation.  Use it for the inspection and estimate fees, certainly.  There is also--," sorting through the folders again, "--an insurance disbursement.  It came in after the flood, when the aqueduct was closed.  I wasn't on hand when the damage report was made, but here is a copy from our business agent."

Mori accepted a second folder, feeling strangely like a student receiving a semester's worth of research assignments all at once.  It hadn't occurred to him there might be money already allocated to fix the aqueduct and irrigation, though he should've guessed it had been insured.  As to why repairs were never made--well that was self-evident too.  Who besides Hito would have been around to manage the system, once it was fixed?  There was no need for the full capacity of the water supply, and doubtless little interest (from anyone besides Hito, at least), in reconstructing it just to water orchards that were never trimmed or harvested from.

"What happened to the disbursement?" he asked.  
"On the advice of our accountants, I placed it into another interest-bearing account.  The idea being to keep abreast of inflation, should the family decide on reconstruction in the future.  On paper at least," his father reflected somewhat grimly, "this place was properly tended."

Mori glanced up from his perusal of the flood damage report, to see Morinozuka-sama realigning the stack of folders on his desk blotter.  Compensating for an indulgence of sentiment the way he always had, with purposeful action.  

"It's been well provided for," Mori offered.  If his father could step forward on this strange tightrope recently strung between them, the least he could do was return the gesture.  So long as they kept inching forward, careful of missteps, then who knew?  Maybe one day they'd meet somewhere in the middle.    
"And now these provisions can be put to work," he added.

Morinozuka-sama inspected his hands, resting on the desk blotter, and then took the set of keys he'd used earlier, and pushed them across toward Mori.  "You'll be wanting those.  The original deed to the property is in the vault, with a copy in my safe at home.  Any other records are in that filing cabinet," gesturing behind him.  He rocked back in the chair, surveying the room briefly before frowning and craning about, tugging out the black scarf bunched against his back.

"You know.  So long as you're ordering inspections for the rest of the property," he mused, "it would be worthwhile to look at heating for the residence wing.  I'm sure the maintenance fund managers would approve the project."

Mori was beginning to feel he had quite enough to keep track of already, but it was a good suggestion.  Mitsukuni would be the only one of them who'd slept warmly last night, since Mori had moved his own space heater into his cousin's room.  It certainly wouldn't do in the future, to have guests freezing in their rooms.

"I'll do that," he nodded.

"And I suppose you'll want to reorganize in here.  Install more book cases, re-arrange things, and so on,"  his father said, flapping his hand vaguely between the desk and the rug.

The folders slipped from Mori's fingers and he jerked up one knee, before they slid off his lap.  "I'm sorry, you mean in this room?"  
"Is that objectionable?" his father raised an eyebrow.

"No.  Not at all."  It was only that....it had never crossed his mind, to work in the master study.  In all the months he'd lived here he'd only been in once, for a private phone conversation with Mitsukuni.  The study was his father's personal territory, and had been for as long as Mori could remember.  The fact that Morinozuka-sama had hardly ever used it was irrelevant; the room had always been off-limits to anyone else.  Mori was no more inclined to loiter in here, than he would be inclined to loiter in the den of a hibernating bear.

His father looked at him, puzzled, and Mori foresaw the next question:  _Then what's the problem?_  Before he was forced to describe the weird inconsistency that had just derailed him (because who knew how that would go over), he pulled himself together quickly, and nodded.

"It's--ah--very generous, sir.  Thank you."   
"Well I'm certainly not using the room.  And it has a phone.  It's only practical, really," his father shrugged.

Mori was willing to allow it made sense from that standpoint.  And in time, he might even feel reasonably comfortable borrowing his father's study.  However he couldn't in a hundred years imagine himself rearranging anything in here.

"It will do very well," he said.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

It wasn't until much later, that Mori unraveled the whole significance of that conversation.  Not until after breakfast (a brief, quiet affair, considering it was still very early and Mitsukuni wasn't entirely awake), after departing words in the foyer, and last goodbyes to his father and his cousin at the car.  Not until after the doors were closed and the car had pulled out and around the wide main drive, picking up speed and distance, and finally disappearing behind the trees and around the hill.

Mori stood at the base of the steps, eyes trained down the driveway for quite some time.  The air was dry and still, and piercingly cold, but he didn't really notice.  He told himself it wasn't forever.  He told himself nothing was broken this time, between himself and his cousin;  that he wasn't broken.  He told himself that someday it wouldn't ache like this, watching a long black car leave without him.  Time would pass, and things would turn out, and that memory would no longer feel like a lead weight dropping for fathoms within him, into mute and lightless places.

The driveway was quiet as a graveyard.  A lone sparrow fluffed itself on a crooked oak branch, overhanging the front walk.  Mori leaned against the porch column, hands tucked deep in his pockets, and smelled snow on the way.  This time tomorrow, the yard and drive would be blanketed in soft white.  Snow would be piled on the courtyard wall like dollops of sugar icing;  crunching under his boots as he shoveled the walkways, and checked the gutters and roofs, and....

Wait a minute.

_He asked for a five-year plan.  Turned over more than enough funds for me to carry it out.  Gave me his study, the keys to the safe.  The property deed._

The conclusion was so obvious, Mori couldn't believe he'd overlooked it.   This was no mere probationary arrangement.  Morinozuka-sama had quite plainly--between the lines of that impressive to-do list--turned over care for the summer estate to him, outright.

Granted, there was still Satoshi's consent to wait on, but in essence....his father had given him exactly what he'd asked for.  More than he'd expected, come to that.

He stared down the winding driveway, jaw slack with astonishment.  This was real.  The estate was his responsibility now.  From here out, he would be solely accountable for whether this property flourished or languished.  It was no longer an abstract possibility;  he had inspections to schedule, contractors to hire, and a plethora of practical obstacles to surmount.  Before they could even access the irrigation, they'd have to improve the property roads.  Transport equipment to the quarry and the reservoir.  He'd been most determined to see the orchards cleaned up this spring, but would he have time to oversee that now?  Where did one even find inspectors for hire?

He failed to notice the sparrow fluttering off, when he began pacing the porch, and only vaguely registered the mechanical thrumming that undercut the stillness around him.  In all his dreaming about the possibilities for the property, he'd failed to account for the sea of details now occurring to him.  If he had to provide accounting to the estate trust managers, it would surely entail typed forms of some kind.  At the very least, he'd need a computer, and a printer.   Up to now, he'd been scrawling out notes on a legal pad.  But there would be things to file, and phone numbers to keep track of.  

In addition, once workers were given access to the back end of the property, he'd doubtless have to keep up with them.  Walking suited him fine day-to-day, but it was hardly efficient.  He had a license to drive, but had never used it;  he'd never owned a personal vehicle.  Clearly, he'd need to look into that too.  Were there automotive dealerships in Karuizawa?  Would he have to go to Nagano to find one?  How would he know what to look--

"Hey, there you are.  Sakura-san was ready to send out a search party."  
Mori spun around and blinked at Arai, pulling the front door shut behind him. 

"Guess I missed them, huh?  Your dad and Mitsukuni-san."  Arai tugged his coat cuffs down over his knuckles and crossed his arms.  "Didn't see any car on the road."

Mori found he was dividing his attention between Arai, making small talk and sidling across the porch toward him, and the sheer cliff of logistics looming in his mind to ever greater heights.  He made an effort to put the logistics aside for the moment.  

"Hm, they left fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago."

"Ah."  Arai nudged his elbow in a friendly manner.  "So it's just us, then."  
The saying struck a chord somewhere in Mori's recollection  Where had he heard that before?

"Brr.  What are you still doing out here?  It's freezing."    
Mori supposed the truth was that he was working himself into a crisis of confidence.  But that hardly seemed an appropriate answer at this juncture.  It struck him as unseemly to be caught wavering now, after all the trouble they'd seen already.

"I was thinking," he said instead.

"Oh?"  Arai edged in closer, trying unobtrusively to huddle next to him, Mori realized.  He smiled and brought his arm around, let Arai tuck in with his forehead to Mori's temple.

"I need to get a car.  Or a truck.  And something to keep phone numbers in.  A fax machine too, probably."  
"Um.  Okay.  Maybe you should start from the beginning."

Mori shrugged.  He'd just as soon not.  He was suddenly more comfortable than he'd been all morning, and would have days to fret over those details, once the estate was snowed in.  "I've never done anything like this.  There's a lot involved in it."

"You could always think inside, y'know," Arai hinted.  "I'm pretty sure your ears are turning to ice."  
He brought his hand up and sure enough, it felt surprisingly warm against Mori's right ear.  Come to think of it, his toes were going numb inside his shoes, too.

"That's true, yes," Mori said.  Allowing Arai, now more or less twined against him, to teeter them both off toward the door.

 

The doorknob was abruptly tugged from his fingers, before he'd quite gotten his grip on it, and Mori glanced up from his empty hand, to meet Kuki-chan's equally confused expression.

"Beg your pardon, Takashi-sama," she bowed.  "I'm--ah--I hope I'm not interrupting...."  
"Not at all," Mori said, one arm still draped casually over Arai's shoulder, as Arai tried self-consciously to wriggle away.

"I'm very sorry for not seeing it sooner, but Haninozuka-san.....That is, I'm afraid one of his personal items was left behind.  I only just discovered this, when I was seeing to his rooms."  From her apron pocket, the girl produced a red lacquered box, thin and rectangular, offering it to Mori.  "I thought Takashi-sama would want to know right away."

"Thank you," Mori said, taking the box.  There were characters painted on the lid, in thin gold script:  Don't forget.  After a moment's examination, his curiosity got the better of him, and he pulled the lid off.  

And then froze.

"A toothbrush?"  said Arai, peeking over his shoulder.

Indeed, there on the white lining rested a bright pink toothbrush, with the distinctive outline of a bunny's head embossed on the handle.  Mori touched a fingertip to the bristles;  they were damp, and his smile went a funny uneven shape.  

All that trouble over Mitsukuni's cavity, back in their school days; once upon a time and long ago.  And to think of all they had been through since.

"At least he remembered this morning," he murmured to himself.

"Takashi-sama, forgive me, but what should we do?  I could call a courier and have it delivered to the Haninozuka home, if you wish."

"I can reach my father's driver by mobile, and ask Mitsukuni,"  Mori concluded.  He put the lid back on the toothbrush holder, and handed it back to Kuki-chan.  "Thank you very much," he said.  "My cousin will appreciate your diligence."

The maid went pink, as he'd expected she might, looking inordinately pleased.  She flustered a bit, but then pulled herself together into a rigidly correct bow.  
"Thanks are not necessary.  It is my honor, Takashi-sama, to serve in your house."  

Mori was taken aback by the declaration, but no more so than by the way she straightened and looked him in the eye.  "I will be waiting for further instructions."

"Yes," Mori nodded.  "Right."  With the vague feeling he ought to return a salute.  Fortunately Kuki-chan was off before he could give in to the urge, closing the front door smartly behind her, leaving the two young men on the porch staring thoughtfully.

Arai shifted from one foot to the other and pressed his lips together.  "I hope I'm not out of line.  But I could swear she likes Mitsukuni-san."

"He has that effect on some people," Mori sighed.  "They get used to it after awhile.  Mostly."  
Arai flashed him a grin, and then tilted his head to the side, considering.  "Huh. You know, I don't think I've ever come in through your front door before."

Mori was well aware of this fact, thanks to Sakura-san having reminded him many, many times    
"Well."  He dropped his arm down around Arai's waist and pretended to muse a moment.  "Should I call Kuki-chan back?  She could bring Sakura-san, and we could welcome you properly."

To all appearances, Arai was giving the offer due and sober consideration.  

"I don't think so," he concluded.  "If Sakura-san figures out I found the front door, she'll probably quit letting me in through the kitchen at all.  No point making a big production out of it.  I'll live, if I don't go through, y'know, the whole formal receiving line thing."

"Hm," Mori said.  
"Yeah," Arai agreed.

There was a longish pause;  Mori held out as long as he could, and then dropped his head on Arai's shoulder, laughing helplessly.  He reached forward, twisted the doorknob, and let the door swing wide while Arai tilted against him, snickering, his arm tight and warm around Mori's back.  It was their laughter, rolling out bright and unbound, that finally jogged his memory for him.  

Grass and shade on the last afternoon of summer.    
A white picket fence with slats hodgepodged on over the gap.    
A boy standing in full sun, shading his eyes with one hand, crooking a friendly grin at him.

_It's just us, then._

On impulse, Mori leaned in and kissed Arai's laughing mouth.  It was a bumpy, awkward collision of a kiss, but Mori didn't mind.  He was too dazzled by sudden summer brilliance, memory sharp as an epiphany behind his eyes.  He smiled, combed his cold fingers into Arai's hair, and kissed him again.  And this time it was better; they fit better.  Arai leaned into him, gripping the lapels of Mori's unfortunate corduroy jacket to tug him closer.

"Welcome to my home," Mori told him, for the first time.

 

*****

 

[The End]


End file.
